Fallout: Washington (On Hiatus)
by MajorKO
Summary: Our story begins in vault 24, where Adam Porcer lives a normal life as a technician and mechanic. One day however, the vault's overseer desides to put an end to 'rebels' inside the vault, hiring a group of slavers to help. Join Adam and his friends as they try to build their new nation in the Washington wasteland and make a difference. But how? (First fanfiction I've written)
1. Fallout: Washington Intro

War...war never changes

In the century following the great war, humanity was at it's highest. With this golden age, humanity was taking huge leaps into the future, but they did so blinded. In 2057, few people would have imagined that this paradise would end. Luckily, some saw it coming, and prepared for it. In 2059, a meeting was held between key members of the United State's western coast. These people included Giles Wolstencroft, acting as representative for Vault-Tec, Robert House, CEO of RobCo, and Ryan Faller, governor of the Northwest commonwealth. Others included city mayors, wealthy and influential people, smaller regional companies, and trusted U.S military and government members. These people saw that resources were starting to run out, and that war would likely happen soon. So, they started working together to preserve the west coast. By the time that war broke out between China and America in 2066, many of these people were hard at work. Mr. House was building a securitron army and anti-nuclear defenses in the Mojave, and Vault-Tec, Governor Faller, and the U.S Army were working on various projects in the N.W commonwealth.

Many of these projects were public, such as Vault cities, advances in construction and energy technology, and preservation devices. Other projects were known by only the government, like the building of the W.A.R.F bunker system and developments in computers. One of these projects was Project Cascadia, a series of bunkers, bases, and anti-missile defenses based in the Cascade mountains, stretching south through California and North into Canada. This project served two purposes. Defense of the rest of the United states against nuclear missiles coming from China, and a barricade against hostile invaders landing on the west coast. Unknown to the United States government however, Faller had repurposed the anti-nuclear system. Faller knew that if the system went after all nuclear missiles, some would get through. So instead, he reprogrammed the system to fire at any that were just heading for the N.W commonwealth. That way, the land would be left relatively unscorched and he would be able to rebuild a new nation out of the ashes.

As the war drew on, Faller was becoming more and more prepared for the nuclear fallout. Multiple projects were ready, the U.S government didn't know a thing about his intentions, and he was surrounded by loyal men. He thought that he would soon be on top. He was wrong.

On October 23, 2077, nuclear missiles were launched across the globe. While project Cascadia worked and kept missiles from passing over the Cascade mountains, it didn't do so well before them. Governor Faller was in Seattle at the time of the nuclear detonations, one of the few places in the N.W commonwealth that was hit by nuclear weapons.

The date is now March 3, 2292, and the pacific northwest is in chaos. War and conflict rage over much of idaho and eastern washington, as slavers and raiders prey on the innocent. Very little word from the lands west of the Cascade mountains reach people, but it shows a mix of war and prosperity. To the south is an aggresivly expanding nation based on the old-war ideals. Meanwhile, something is brewing across the Canadian border, as settlements fall off the map and travelers go missing. But we'll get to that latter. For now, our story shall start, in vault 24...


	2. Fallout: Washington Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Location: Vault 24

"Hey Adam!" I look up to see one of my friends, John, walk into the technician's room.

"Hey John, you need something?" I asked, wondering what he broke this time. John has had a history of breaking things. Usually it's something unimportant like a pencil or a spare mirror. However, leading up to the G.O.A.T,the stuff he was breaking started to become more important. I know that he's broken several lights, two terminals, a T.V screen, and 3 Mister Handy robots before, and that's just what I know. In fact, if it wasn't for him constantly breaking stuff, I wouldn't have developed many of the mechanical or technical skills I got from constantly. While he hasn't broken much since the G.O.A.T, he still tends to have his 'accidents' from time to time.

"I need you to check my pip-boy, I think it's broken." He said, holding up his pip-boy 3000. "I know that you're not the pip-boy technician, and no where near as good as Alice, but if I give it to her, she might report this, so…" he finished, giving me an innocent look.

I grab the pip-boy and try to look at the damage. I couldn't see how bad it was, but due to the fact that the glass was broken, one of the dials had been jammed, and the radiation detector wasn't working, I could guess that it was pretty bad. I was stunned that it was this damaged, after all, pipboy were near impossible to destroy, of course, assuming that it wasn't blown up or…

I looked up at John and bluntly said "This is beyond my help, so you'll have to talk to Alice, but… how did you damage it this bad?" At that John looked to the side and said "I might of… sort of… um, possibly-"

"Oh just spill it!" I said, rapidly growing impatient.

"I broke into the armory, okay!" John said, looking at me with concealed pride.

"Th-the Armory!" I stammered out. "How did you get in there?!" I was amazed that he was able to do this, but also worried. What would happen if the overseer found out. After all, he's been getting more and more paranoid about people who might be against him.

"Well, as a guard, I'm able to get away with certain things, such as looking up the guard schedule and getting the armory keys. Alice also owed me a favor, so since she had some skill in hacking, I gave her the task of wiping the camera footage and creating a distraction." He said, happy about himself.

"Wait, Alice set the overseer's door to malfunction?" I said, remembering trying to open the door a few hours ago.

"Yep, was pretty excited about it too!"

"So, how does this lead to you breaking your pip-boy?" I asked, deciding to leave the subject of Alice actually helping John for now.

"Well, I was testing some of the things I 'borrowed' from the armory, and I accidentally had a grenade with me…"

I look at him, piecing the story together, "Let me guess, you accidentally activated it and threw it away, which ended up near your pip boy…" I say with a smirk on my face. After suppressing his surprise, John let out a "yep!"

After a couple minutes of awkward silence, I broke it by asking "Hey John, that party tomorrow still on?"

He immediately wore a smile and replied "Yep, besides you and me, I got Alice, Alex, Roy, Nat, Chris, and Dusk to come."

This was our inner circle of friends. Alex and Nat were both doctors, human and animal/nature respectively. Roy was another guard, except that instead of being average like John, he was skilled with short range and melee fighting. He also showed me that he had some skills in lockpicking, which I took a few notes on. While she was a pip boy technician, Alice was good at anything involving computers, whether it's programing a robot or creating a virus. Heck, she could probably find some way to shutdown the reactor from a storeroom terminal. Chris was the guy who was always optimistic and came up with ideas. As a result, he is part of a small committee that came up with ideas for the vault. Finally, there was Dusk. She is the brains of the group. Not only does she have two jobs, researcher and head librarian, but she's a major bookworm and loves to study new subjects whenever they arise.

"Well, I'll see you there." I said as John went to leave with his pip-boy to talk to Alice. "Cya!" He replied as he closed the door.

After John leaves, I decide to go ahead and make my room a bit more organized. My place was a standard Vault-Tec living quarters attached to a slightly larger room where I did my job as a mechanic and technician. On one side of the room were a bunch of cabinets and storage lockers filled with spare parts and scrap. On the side of the room with the door leading to my quarters was a desk with a terminal on top of it, along with a couple of filing cabinets and a shelving unit filled with books. On the other two sides of the room were my various workbenches, items needing fixing, and some personal projects.

I looked over two of my most prized projects. One of them was a reinforced U.S army combat helmet I found in the Vault's junk room. After fixing it back up, I started adding personal touches to it, such as a radio set-up and attachable mini-flashlight. The addition I was currently working on was a glass overlay which would, in theory, connect up with my pip-boy. This would enable me to set certain things to pop up on screen, like my body's status. The feature which I hope to connect it up to is a V.A.T.S system that I found on a hard drive.

The other main project I'm focusing on is a deactivated Mister Gutsy. The mister Gutsy I found at the market area one day. I guy there called Rick said that the Mister Gutsy had been assigned to the vault, but due to programing issues it was deactivated. After I bought it I immediately brought it to the shop to fix it. After about two months, I had fixed the programing issue with help from Alice, and I was now working on how it could be used. I figured that I would use it as an occasional assistant and to protect the shop. Unfortunately, the mister Gutsy had been stripped of its weaponry before being sold, so the only I could arm it was to steal from the Vault's armory, which I wasn't going to do.

I sighed as I left the workshop, ready to go to bed. I took a look around the living quarters I lived in as I walked through. I didn't have many personal possessions, just some vault suits, my pip-boy, a crossbow and bolts I got for my 10th birthday, a mini-terminal to take with me on the job, and a couple of photos. One showed me when I was just a baby, with my mom holding me and my dad standing next to her, looking proud. Another showed me as a toddler and my dad together after one of the vault's rare movie nights. My mom wasn't in the picture because she was dead. My Dad said it happened when my mom, who was also a mechanic, was fixing a gas line when something went wrong. Short story, that level of the vault wasn't open for two years due to explosive damage. My dad, who was an advisor of the overseer at the time, fell into a sort of depression. Shaking those heads from my thoughts, I went to my last few pictures. They included my 10th birthday, where I got my crossbow and pip-boy, me together with my friends just before the G.O.A.T test, and finally, an old one that showed my great ancestors back when they lived on the surface.

I looked away and went into my bedroom and happily moaned as I layed on the bed, feeling pops going through my back as I layed there. As I feel asleep, I was thinking about the party tomorrow, which was for the 5th anniversary of us passing the G.O.A.T tests…

-Inside the Vault Overseer's office-

"Dammit dammit dammit." The overseer said, pacing around his office.

After he got out of his room from the faulty door, he immediately checked to see if anything had happened. He just had a feeling that those rebels had done something. He wasn't sure who they were, or if they even existed at times, but he knew something was wrong.

He was right.

There were numerous items stolen from the armory. The Head security chief had just delivered the final report of what was stolen:

Items stolen from vault on March 3, 2292:

X1 Vault security armored uniform

X1 U.S Army combat rifle

X2 10mm pistols

X2 Riot shields

X1 Night-vision goggles

X2 Gas masks

X3 Security batons

X3 tear gas grenades

X3 U.S Army Fragmentation grenades

X94 4.5mm rifle ammo

X140 10mm ammo

Report made by: Vault 24 Chief Security Officer

To: Vault 24 Overseer

After some searching through the area, one of the guards had noticed there was a large scorch mark and dent inside one of a nearby janitor's closet, likely from a grenade. The overseer wasn't sure why it was there, but maybe it was a bomb that had been planted mis-correctly. He wasn't sure what to do anymore, but he knew he had to find these rebels and destroy them. He figured that cracking down with security forces wouldn't do much. They might even make people MORE rebellious, and he didn't want that.

After some thinking, he realised that there was help that he could get, so he went to his secretary's desk and told her "Jane, get the radio up, I need to make an outside call."

Jane nodded grimly, and after making a couple of calls and adjustments, handed a hand-held radio to the overseer. "There you go sir" she said as she left him to talk.

After a moment of silence, the overseer clicked a button on the radio and said very clearly "Jackal, I have a job for you."


	3. Fallout: Washington Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Location: Vault 24

Whenever I was at a party, I was always on time. It was a sort of standard for me, to always be on time, if not early, to anything I needed to attend. Whether it be lunch, class, or any other event.

Well today, I was regretting that standard as I was rushing through the halls, feeling guilty all the while. I was going to leave at an appropriate time, but I suddenly got an order a few hours before the party to assist in repairs near the front entrance to the surface. I wasn't even sure why that any of the systems their needed to be repaired, after all we're not going up there any time soon.

Anyway, I got into Chris's room, where were holding the party, just before it started. After a few heavy breaths, I looked up and realised that the entire room was staring at me, with looks of surprise and amusement on their faces.

"Well, I'm here, so who's ready to party?" I said, with a grin on my face. This lead to the entire room letting off a huge cheer, with John yelling "Let's party!"

 **2 Hours later**

As we continued on into the party, we started to exchange stories about our jobs, whether it be how fun it could be at times, or unique experiences. Of course, I, John and Alice kept the whole armory story to ourselves, since we figured it would be more trouble to tell them to keep it a secret.

However, during a story about when Nat was dissecting a radroach, another friend of our's, Lucy, comes bursting in. "Hey Lucy, I thought you were too busy to attend the party." John quips. Lucy gave John a quick glare before she addresses the rest of the group. "Guys, we have a problem, the overseer has issued a search of everyone's rooms and is supposedly cracking down on 'rebels'" she says seriously. Lucy was the kind of girl who could find just about anything while being stealthy, so it didn't surprise me that she found out about this.

What did surprise me though was the crack down. I was wondering why the overseer was doing this, but then I remembered that he's always paranoid and that John broke into the armory yesterday. "So...how does this affect us?" Chris said. "It affects us because he's already listing off 'suspects' who he thinks are rebels." Lucy said. This shocked us into silence, partly at the fact that the overseer is accusing people of being rebels, and partily in thought of who it could be.

John eventually broke the silence by asking "Well, who's on the list?" This lead to Lucy telling us about who was being listed as suspect. In all, 74 of the Vault's 521 residents were suspects, including me, Alice, and Dusk and our families.

"Wh-what do we do?" Alice said, stammering and shaking with nervousness. I looked up and asked Lucy "When does the search start?"

"It already has, they're going to be searching level by level. At the moment, they've already searched residential levels ten through seven, and they should be working on six at the moment." She said, a look of anticipation on her face.

I was quickly trying to piece up a plan and after a minute, I had one together, or at least the first steps of one. "Alright guys, listen up." I said, getting everyone's attention. "Everyone lives on levels two through four, correct?" Everyone nodded. "Good, I want you all to get to your rooms and pack anything you need, meet me at my room in twenty minutes, alright?" More nods, now more hopeful and determined. "Good, let's get going!"

As everyone started to walk away, I went over to John and whispered "Make sure you get the gear you stole from the armory. Use a wheeled cart if you have to."

John nodded as ran out the door, after everyone else, except for Chris and Dusk, who was helping Chris pack up. "I'll see you soon." I said. As I left, I saw a look of indecision on Dusk's face before she finally says "I'll see you, and be safe." With a nod, I turn around and head toward my room, leaving them behind.


	4. Fallout: Washington Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Location: Vault 24

 **23 Minutes after party**

"So, everyone got what they wanted?" I asked, looking at my group of assembled friends. Everyone except John had arrived by now with their possessions and some with things from their jobs. Roy had brought with his combat shotgun and 4 drums of 12 shotgun shells. Nat, Alex, and Dusk had brought their scientific discoveries and records. Nat and Alex also brought some medical supplies and Nat's German Shepard, Boxer. In addition, Dusk brought some books and holotapes she thought would be useful, and Alice brought with 4 spare pip-boys, as well as a large repair/maintenance kit for them.

"Yeah but, where's John and Lucy?" Chris asked.

Before anyone could say anything, John burst through the doors, pushing a cart full of his own possessions and the armory loot. Before anyone could ask why he had all of this, John said "I figured that since we might be in for a fight, we might as well bring the big guns."

While I and Alice knew that he was slightly lying and hiding the full truth, everyone else either seemed to agree or were still too shocked to argue.

"Alright everyone, we'll wait for Lucy, then figure out what to do from here." I said, with everyone nodding or grunting in agreement. As we waited for Lucy, I decided to check my special projects. While the Mister Gutsy still didn't have any weapons, it would still be useful as a scout, among other things. However, the helmet, which I decided to name the 'Combat Tactical Helmet', or CTM for short, was all finished, and I had the V.A.T.S system on the hard drive downloaded into my pip-boy before giving it to the rest to download as well. Meanwhile, I established a network link between my pip-boy and helmet. So basically, any seeable systems in the pip-boy, like V.A.T.S, it's map, inventory management, and body condition, would pop up on the bullet-proof glass.

I decided to start packing my things into one of the survivalist packs instead of the much smaller Vault backpacks or a bag. I packed a couple of spare Vault suits, my family pictures, my mini-terminal, which I've decided to start called a laptop for short, a couple of manuals and books, some parts and tools that I figured would be more rare and valuable, several fusion cores and batteries to keep objects powered, and couple of mini-solar generators.

I had just slung my crossbow and bag of bolts over my shoulder when Lucy entered the room, pale and full of fear. "Is everything ok Lucy?" Roy asked, concern in his voice.

"N-no it's not, th-the vault door, it's op-open." She said quietly. We looked at each other and John was about to say something, when Lucy talked again, slightly more calm "They let in a group of rough looking, dirty people from outside. I'm not too sure who they are, but I heard the Security Chief mumble something about slavers.".

We were speechless for a few seconds, until Chris said "Alright, we definitely have to get out of here. Now does anyone have any ideas as to where we could go?" John immediately suggested leaving now, but we decided against it. After all, we weren't nowhere near ready to leave the vault. Plus, there would likely be guards we'd have to deal with.

After a bit more thinking, I remembered somewhere. "Hey, what about the junk room? It isn't where people would live, and it's on the 10th level, which has already been swept through by security."

Everyone thought about it for a second, and then agread. After making sure the cameras were frozen, thanks to Alice, I activated the mister Gutsy, and we all went down the elevator. Luckily, we met no residents or security along the way, and we made it to the junk room in without being seen. After we settled in, while John and Chris barricaded the doors and Alice set up an area to observe the vault from the cameras, the rest of us settled down or started looking for anything useful in the junk.

It mostly was, as implied, junk, but Roy managed to find a nice machete and Dusk a box of matches, both of which would be useful.

 **4 Hours later**

It was about 11:30 P.M when we heard the announcement on the Vault's broadcast system. Apparently all of us were wanted now, which would make things harder for us to leave the Vault, which we all agreed that it was the only option left.

We all huddled around as Chris and I told everyone the plan that we had come up with. From what Alice had found on the cameras and data she's been able to hack into, there's a small, hidden garage near the entrance with a couple of jeeps in it. What we would do is launch a series of raids on the armory,clinic, and cafeteria for supplies at midnight by using the vents. Either once that has finished, or no word has been received from one of the raiding parties by 1:00, then we head to the elevator to the top level, and get into the garage.

Nat, Alex, and Roy would be raiding the clinic, Dusk and Lucy the cafeteria, and me, Chris, and John would go for the armory. Alice would be staying behind to watch the cameras and cause distractions if need be. Each group would have a weapon just in case, with the armory group being the most well armed with the combat rifle, a 10mm pistol, and my crossbow. After we gave each person a walkie-talkie and the right frequencies to use, we set off to cause some chaos.


	5. Fallout: Washington Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Location: Vault 24

I was crawling through the vents, toward the armory, when I first saw a slaver and, more importantly, an outsider. He had on a dirty set of pre-war clothes, with a leather vest and metal shoulder pads. What was most interesting though, was the symbol on his shoulder pads, which was a skull with a pair of handcuffs below it. We saw all this as we saw him walking down the hall near the grate in the vent system that we nearby, no doubt patrolling. But what was most shocking was that he was walking along side two of our own security guards. I guess that even though I knew about this, I still wasn't prepared to see it myself.

After seeing the slaver, we continued on for another few minutes until we reached the armory. After reaching it, we saw that it was guarded by a security guard and a slaver. We were prepared for this however, so Chris went to the vent inside the armory while John went to one around the corner of a nearby hall. I kept watch at the front entrance. A minute later, there was a _*cling*_ inside the armory. After looking at each other for a moment, the Vault guard said "I'll check it out.". After that, he opened the door to the armory and shut it behind him. Just after the door closed, John rushed toward the slaver from around the corner. Too surprised to do much, the slaver was immediately tackled and, after a quick choke-hold, knocked out.

I lept down from the grate above to help carry the slaver into the armory, which held an equally unconscious vault security guard. After securing the guards in handcuffs and gagging them, we went to work on securing all that we could from the armory. After about 19 minutes and reapplying the knockout status to the guards, we had everything we needed, secured in four small crates.

One of these crates held boxes and military containers filled with grenades, ammo, and weapon attachments of many kinds. The second held spare parts and cleaning kits for the weapons we got, along with a variety of knives, machetes, and shock batons. The third one held armor and uniforms, while the fourth held the guns.

While many of the guns were pistols, mostly 10mm with an occasional revolver or desert eagle, there were plenty of higher grade weapons too. We grabbed many combat rifles, combat shotguns, sub-machine guns, M4A1 carbines, some hunting rifles converted for sniper use, and even a grenade launcher! When we did leave the vault, we were definitely set for action.

As we started to drag the crates into a vent , John said "Hey guys, come check this out." What he found surprised us. Inside a box in the corner of the room were two heavy machine guns and a laser rifle, with what must have been about a hundred rounds for the laser rifle and close to a couple of thousand for the machine guns. We quickly agreed to take them and, after setting up a little surprise, left with the five crates, heading back to the junk room.

 **25 Minutes later**

 **(1:52 A.M)**

As we arrived back at the junk room, we quickly learned that the other two raids were a success, and that only the clinic raid had to take down a guard, another slaver. The clinic raid managed to scavenge tons of medical supplies. When we had started the raids, we agreed to leave a third of the medical supplies and half of the food behind, so the vault doesn't die off. Even so, we still got a lot from the other raids. There were 2 crates of stimpacks, Med-X, Rad-X, blood bags, antiseptics, bandages/gauze, antibiotics, and various medical tools and books from the clinic raid. Meanwhile, Lucy and Dusk got about three months worth of canned food and one month of preserved water.

A few minutes later, we activated the distractions in or near each of the raised areas, which were made out of explosives and gas. After we waited a moment, we rushed toward the elevator nearby, pushing four wheeled carts with all the gear we got. Besides having to subdue a couple of slavers on the top floor waiting to use the elevator, we successfully got to the garage.

I quickly made a couple of checks on the jeeps to make sure they were good. Once I gave the thumbs up, everyone started to load the crates into the jeeps. "Hey Adam!" John said, getting my attention. "You thinking what I'm thinking?" He happily said, showing me one of the machine guns and them pointing to what looked like a gun mount inside the jeep. "Alright, you and I will be the gunners.". I said, not sure how to feel. On one hand, it would make me more exposed to gunfire. On the other hand, it was a machine gun…

I ended up going with what I said, and After attaching the gun mounts and the guns themselves, John and I mounted our positions.

"Alright, is everyone ready?" Everyone nodded. "Ok good, Chris, you're driving this jeep with me, Lucy, Dusk, and Alex. Roy, you're driving the other jeep with John, Alice, and Nat, alright?" More nods. "Alright, let's do this!"

 **At the open Vault 24 entrance**

I was pissed. I wanted to try my luck at finding those runaway brats, but no! Jackal decided to put me as guard with the group druggie and our two worst shots, and this was all because of the one slave that got away on the last run a month or so ago! It wasn't my fault either, since I was already shot in the leg and outgunned, as the guy had an assault rifle compared to my double-barrel shotgun.

'Knew I shoulda chosen one of those ak's from Richland.' I thought as I light a cigar. I was contemplating whether or not to offer one to the druggie, when I suddenly heard the moving of steel sliders and a generator. "What the hell?" One of the bad shots said, stepping forward to get a closer look. All of a sudden I heard a screech of rubber on concrete and bullets starting to fly. As I raised my gun, I realised that the generator I heard wasn't a generator at all, but an engine. You want to know how I realised this, why I found out when I saw two jeeps barrelling toward the front entrance.

I tried to move out of the way, but a bullet hit my leg, sending me tumbling to the ground. As I looked up, I saw with horror that one of the jeeps was about to drive over me, carrying the very kids that the other were looking for. "FFFFFUUUUU-" I yelled, just before being run over by the jeep, ending the life of another vermin in the wasteland.

 **At the open Vault 24 entrance**

 **On Adam's jeep**

"H-hey, I think I ran over one of them." Chris said, worriedly trying to focus on driving or avoiding bullets from the few slavers that didn't run or were gunned down. It was good that it was just slavers, because I'm not sure if I could of shot Vault security. I know that they were enemies as well, but for all I know, they might've been forced to do this. It also made it worse that I might have known them.

"I was pushed out of my thoughts though when Dusk said "Guys, we got a problem!" I looked back to see a few beaten up motorcycles and a scrap covered pickup truck armed with a machine gun head toward us.

"Dammit!" I yelled, swinging my gun around and opening fire on the incoming slaver vehicles. Not knowing we had already seen them, the slavers were taken by surprise as machine gun bullets rained down on them, driving off or taking out the motorcycles.

However, the bullets simply _pinged_ off of the truck, it's armor holding strong. Luckily, the truck's gunner didn't have this armor, so he ducked down behind the cabin of the truck, firing blindly at us. While he didn't hit us, some of his shots were close, and it looked like he was getting ready to get up again for a clearer shot. 'Come on! come on! There's gotta be something that can help!' I thought as I looked around the jeep. I suddenly saw the grenade launcher we had grabbed back at the armory, just waiting for me to grab it.

Taking the launcher in hand, I fired off a couple of shots, missing with one and hitting with the other. While it wasn't a complete kill, it took out the rear left portion of the truck, likely killing the gunner, and sending the pick-up skidding to a stop. The driver got out and fired a couple of shots off, but by then we were too far away for them to hit, especially since it came from a rusted up pistol.

We kept driving for a while driving for about four more hours until we figured we were safe enough. We camped at an old restaurant for a while, before heading out again at a slower pace. Remembering that our pip-boys, and in this case my CTM, had mapping technology, we found that our Vault was near a slave outpost called Elrion, in an old pre-war town called Chewelah. We were currently south of a town called Kettle Falls, which in the distance, just looked like a bunch of concrete ruins.

After deciding not to stay there, we agreed to pass through Kettle Falls and head to Republic by heading west on highway 20.

 **Several hours later**

It took us most of the day, but we managed to make it to the outskirts of Republic. Normally it would have taken only an hour or two, but we had to go slow because of various reasons. These reasons included slaver patrols, raiders, which we had to fight once, a popped tire and a couple hours to find one, and travelling through the ruins of buildings and roads and wreckages of old cars.

Due to being awake for so long and so low on energy from all that we've done, we quickly chose a spot to set up for the night, which was a red rocket gas station.

After parking the jeeps inside the garage, checking the building for threats and loot, which were none and very little respectfully, boarding up the entrances, and setting up trip-wire alarms, we all fell asleep.

As I did, I wondered what would be in store for us now. We're on our own, unwelcome in the vault 24 and likely being hunted down by said vault and it's allied slavers. Chris said that it would likely take a few weeks at the least to track us to here, and even then it's unlikely. I wasn't too sure but I knew that Chris was often correct. Besides, I was too tired to argue.

Going back on topic, I realised two things. One was that everyone was mostly looking to me for directing, even Chris. I guessed that by doing that, they sort of made me their unoffical leader, which I wasn't too sure of. The other was the shock of killing people. I knew that they were bad, but it still felt bad to kill people. Although, I'm even more surprised that the shock is barely there. I hoped it wasn't a bad sign, and started to drift off into sleep when I heard a shudder.

Looking up, I saw that it came from Dusk. After we got out of the area, we saw that Dusk had been the only one to get shot, and luckily it wasn't bad. After applying a bandage, a stimpack, and a shot of Med-X, Alex told her to try to take it easy. Even so, she was determined to help us during the whole trip, and only rested when there was nothing to help with or when we forced her, and that usually didn't last long. It got to the point where she needed another shot of Med-X just to keep the pain down and to keep her from going into shock.

I was a bit worried for a while that she would get addicted to the chem, but Alex said that she would need a more larger and/or frequent dosage to become addicted. And even then, we could use some addictol to cure her, which we wanted to conserve since we only had about half a dozen shots.

I went over to her, and after checking her to make sure she's alright, I pulled a nearby Vault-Tec blanket over her to keep her warm. I them shuffled to my spot nearby was soon fast asleep.


	6. Fallout: Washington Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Location: Red rocket gas station

(outskirts of the town of Republic)

I woke up to the sound of shuffling. I quickly looked up, thinking that the slavers caught us. However, instead of slavers, was just Dusk and John, who were looking through what we stole from the vault, and Chris, who was getting some canned food to probably get breakfast ready.

I layed there for a moment, rubbing my eye and trying to wake myself up, before getting up and walking over to John and Dusk. "Hey Dusk, how's your arm doing?" I asked, looking at her with slight concern. "Don't worry Adam, it's doing alright, it barely even hurts."SHe said, slightly blushing. She even demonstrated by moving her arm around, only showing slight pain when she moved it at a wrong angle. "Besides, I already talked to Alex about it before he went up to the roof to have a look around us."

Nodding, I then asked the second question I had. "So, what did we get from the vault?" She then showed me a professional looking list of all we got.

Items we Stole from Vault 24:

Weapons/Armor:

X2 U.S Army M2 Browning machine guns

X1 U.S Army Laser rifle

X21 U.S Army Combat rifles

X9 M4A1 carbines

X14 U.S Army Combat Shotguns

X3 Hunting (Sniper) rifles

X29 10mm pistols

X3 Magnum revolvers

X2 U.S Army Desert eagles

X19 assorted combat knifes

X7 Machetes

X5 shock batons

X19 U.S Army Survivalist backpacks

X12 Vault-Tec backpacks

X23 U.S Army Kevlar vests

X5 Vault security armored uniforms

X14 U.S Army combat helmets

X3 U.S Army combat chestplate

X18 Fragmentation grenades

X5 Tear gas grenades

X4 smoke grenades (red)

X3 smoke grenades (white)

X3 smoke grenades (blue)

X3 smoke grenades (green)

And that was just weapons and armor, there were lists for ammo, weapon parts/attachments, food, water, medical supplies, fusion batteries/cores, and even small scale things like toothpaste or pencils.

"Wow...you guys did great." I said, surprised by how well it was organized. "Thanks, John helped gather the gear and present it, while I categorized in listed it." She replied, blushing a little more.

I then went and got a few cans of food from Chris and then proceeded up to the roof where Lucy and Alex were, looking around at the landscape. I then just realised how different the surface was from what we were expecting. Most of us were either expecting a radioactive, barren wasteland or something similar to the pre-war land. In most cases, it was both and neither. While the land is still fertile, it looked a bit more wilted and dried out. On our way here, I remember seeing patches of land more fertile and patches more dead, and likely radioactive.

"Have you guys seen anything interesting?" I ask, curiously.

"From what it looks like, the town looks pretty intact. Of course, there's the fact that there's more than 200 years of decay and the occasional ruin, but it looks alright." Lucy said. "From what we've seen as well as from old maps of the place, there's a few places of high interest in town. There a hospital, three schools, two banks, numerous grocery stores, gas stations, and pawn shops, a police station, and a small air force base just north of the town." She quickly listed off, a proud smile on her and Alex's face.

"Good job guys, make sure to let us know if you see anything suspicious." I replied, giving both of them their breakfast and started to go downstairs. Before I reached the bottom however, I started to hear a distant noise. I was confused as to what it was at first, but then with dread I realised what it was, right at the same moment the lookouts saw it. "Incoming truck!" Yelled Alex, as he and Lucy ran down the stairs.


	7. Fallout: Washington Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Location: Red rocket gas station

(outskirts of the town of Republic)

We waited with inside the gas station as the truck grew closer, increasing our anxiety every minute. After me, Alex, and Lucy ran downstairs, we quickly armed up. Lucy went back up to the roof with John, both armed with hunting rifles, to act as lookouts and snipers in case things got bad. Meanwhile, the rest of us were positioned inside the gas station, armed with combat rifles, shotguns, and M4 carbines, pointed at the entrances, ready to take any slavers out.

Through the walkie-talkie, Lucy kept us informed on what was happening. She said that the truck looked like a old but large U.S Army supply transport. She could make out one person in the front, but couldn't get any more details after the truck pulled up under the part of the roof covering the gas pumps. After hearing this, I motioned for Roy to come with me out the opposite exit and flank them. I told everyone to not fire unless they shot first, before heading with Roy to check it out.

After reaching the front, I looked around to see what we were dealing with. What I saw slightly surprised me. I had been expecting a full party of raiders or slavers, ready to kick down the door. What I saw instead was an old man looking through the engine of his truck. He was wearing a checkered shirt and old overalls, complete with a small stenson on his head. He looked like he was in his mid-60's, and was likely a farmer of sorts.

After looking at each other, I decided to move forward and confront the man, motioning for Roy to go left. After getting to about 12 feet away, I spoke. "Put your hands in the air, now!"

After a bit of a pause the man sighed, putting down what looked like a wrench and saying "Take it easy there, son, we don't need to fight." The man turned around, looking at us with a true expression that said that no fight was needed. "What are you doing here, and is there anyone else with you?" I asked, motioning for Roy to look at the back of the truck.

"I needed to take a look at my engine, and I figured that I'd be nearby a place where it would be easy to repair it if need be, and that place was here, since it was the closest." He said without missing a beat, looking genuinely honest. "And I ain't got nobody back there, so you can stop looking." He added, looking at Roy who was looking inside the back. "Alright, I'll stop looking. Just some medical supplies make there anyway." He said, backing away.

I then looked at the old man and asked "Why do you have medical supplies?" The man looked conflicted for a few moments, but then sighed. "They're for my kids. A few days ago, we had heard that a new trading outpost had been set up to the north in a town called Malo. Me, my two sons, and my daughter all rode up there to check it out while my wife stayed to watch over the farm." The man pauses, taking a piece of cloth and dabbing it on his face, removing some of the sweet and dirt that had built up, before continuing.

"Well, it turned out that the rumor was true. A travelling merchant had settled down, and with some hired guards and some willing settlers, had set up a small trading village. Bad news was, we weren't the only ones who had found out. By the time we got there, the village was in ruins. After we saw that everyone had already been taken by the slavers who attacked, we started to head back home. However, we were ambushed along the way by a slaver patrol. They were likely looking for people who escaped the village attack, since I hadn't seen any patrols that big in the area before."

Before continuing, he paused, looking at us. I then realised that I and everyone else had tensed us. And by everyone else, I meant that everyone had was at least listening to the story by then. We stood there for a second in silence, and then I motioned the man to continue. Nodding, he continued his story.

"They came at us with on several motorcycles and were shooting all over the place. We shot back and got a few of them, but we were all hit." At this, he showed his left arm, which had a slightly bloody bandage wrapped around it. "I got the luckiest and was only grazed. My oldest son, however…" He looked sad before continuing sorrowly "My younger son got shot in the gut and my daughter in the leg. While we eventually managed to get away, we were very low on medical supplies due to most of it either being destroyed or fallen out during the chase. I managed to patch us up, but we lacked stimpacks. By the time we got back home, we were almost worn down to the bone. Luckily with my wife's help, we patched the kids up, but by then their wounds had become infected to the point where stimpacks wouldn't be able to help. So now I've spent the last two days looking for antibiotics or something that could cure them. However, the town hospital is overrun by ghouls, and any other places with medical supplies either don't have any of the things I need or have already been long expired." He finished, a sad expression on his face.

I could easily tell that the rest of us were saddened by the story too. As I was looking through our crowd, I saw Alex looking at me curiously. When he noticed I saw him, he motioned to himself and then over to the old man. I figured out what he wanted to do, and I figured it would be alright, so I gave him a nod, which he immediately took. Doing this, I confirmed that at least some of our group considered me the leader.

Walking over to the man, Alex said "Well sir, I may not be too familiar with bullet wounds, but if you would allowed it, I can help you heal up your children. We also got some antibiotics as well, so I should be able to purge the infection."

The man looked at him in wonder, and then to me. I then nodded, showing that our intentions were true. After that he said "Oh thank you, we should probably go now, my wife is expecting me soon." As we started to pack up our gear, I thought 'Why does everyone think I'm the leader!?'

We soon had everything packed up, and as we were about to head out the old man asked what our names were. I told mine and let everyone else say there own. Nodding, the old man said his name was George Ritz. After the brief conversation, we loaded up onto the vehicles, with Lucy and Dusk riding in the truck, the rest of us on the jeeps. We soon sped down the highway toward their farm, in our little convoy.

 **1 Hour later**

We were driving along as George explained some things about the wasteland to us over the walkie talkies. From small things like what the typical settler might prefer as a weapon, to all the different kinds of mutated animals and which kinds didn't mutate.

As we were talking and driving, I looked across the land to our sides. On one side was a forest of mostly alive trees, dotted with the occasional pre or post war cabin or building. On the other side were plains and hills, stretching far away. Using binoculars, I could even slightly make out the shape of a lake. Looking in front of us, we saw a farm, likely George's, and after that was some of the outlying suburbs of Republic, with the town itself not too far away. "Well, here we are!" Hollered George, confirming that we were indeed at his farm. 'Well, this will be interesting' I thought as I jumped off.


	8. Fallout: Washington Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Date: March 7, 2292

Location: Ritz family farm

(just outside of Republic)

After we had arrived at the farm, Alex immediately went into action. As soon as George was done briefly telling his wife, Isabell, that we were here to help, Alex started working on their children, which were Elza and Jordan. It was a few hours later when Alex said that they would likely make a full recovery, with Elza being up in about a few days, and Jordan in a couple of weeks.

That was two days ago, and now George has been educating us about the wasteland and it's various aspects. He had first taught us skills in various things that'll help us, like farming, animal caretaking, weapon maintenance, and modification, driving and vehicle maintenance, bartering, combat, and basic lockpicking, hacking, and robotics skills, with any of us who know anything about those subjects helping.

After that, he told us about the wasteland itself. Like I had observed earlier, most of the land was still the same as before the war, if a bit deader, but still mostly the same. Even so, there were patches of it that were both irradiated and healthier.

The irradiated lands often had enough radiation to drive people off, and had many packs of mutated creatures using the lands as their homes. Most of these were ghouls, radscorpions, yao guais, mole rats, and the occasional deathclaw. Even so, they often had unlooted areas from before the war, still waiting to be collected.

Meanwhile, the healthy areas had their own kind of danger, While fertile and full of life, they were often fought over, usually between raiders and either other raiders groups or settlers. But while some healthy areas are plagued by war, others are peaceful. Either the group that's there is too strong for other groups to oppose, or there's few or no nearby groups to contest the area. These areas often have some of the most prosperous post-war settlements yet. In fact, George had predicted that if it wasn't attacked by slavers, then Malo would have likely become big and strong enough to have defended against those slavers within two years. This was due not only to it's decent strength and population, but also that it was located right inside of one of the largest stretches of healthy land in the Washington wasteland. It stretched north to the southern edge of Curlew, to the south in Republic. Besides settlements, they're often filled with animals and usually have at least a few farms, depending on the healthy land's area and how much more healthier it is then the average land area.

We asked how these different patches of land came to be. He said that it was likely a combination of these lands either being out of range or directly hit by 'the plague', nuclear comets, or just by dumb luck. The plague had been a biological weapon that had been launched in missiles against some of the western U.S territories once the nukes had been fired. They left one in every ten people it came in contact with alive. Unfortunately, due to using newer Chinese missile technology, most of them got past the barrier that saved Washington from nuclear destruction, killing off much of the population. Luckily, they had a small range of about 100 miles or so, so the disease they released didn't spread throughout the American wasteland. Nuclear comets meanwhile, were fragments of nuclear missiles that were shot down that rained throughout Washington. This lead to the distribution of most of what little radiation that got through the barrier into Washington. These comets also lead to most of the irradiated zones, which were their impact points.

George told us about how in some cases, healthy and irradiated land has lead to many important things in the wasteland's history. Some of the biggest factions in the wasteland have at least some of the healthy land. For example, the Tri-cities, Spokania, and New Coulee city all have healthy land, and they were big power players. Asking about these groups, George told us about these faction's histories.

New Coulee city originated from the original Coulee city, which was south from the current city location, on Banks Lake. The town had been one of the only areas not to have been hit by 'the plague' which made it one of the largest surviving settlements after the war. After a couple years, the town's inhabitants, combined with survivors from other areas and a military company assigned to the town, abandoned the town due to security and water issues, travelling north to the Grand Coulee dam. After discovering it intact, operating, and inhabited, the thousand or so people from Coulee city combined with survivors and the dam's original work force to create New Coulee City. Today, the people of New Coulee city occupy the Bank Lake area stretching between the main city itself and 'old Coulee', which had just recently been inhabited by people from the main city. The small nation barely interacts with the rest of the wasteland, preferring isolation except for groups that it's allied with, such as New Kennewick and many of the local groups in central Washington. When they do trade, they often trade purified water and electricity, whether in the form of charged batteries or electricity lines to other towns.

The Tri-cities had been created about 80 years after the nuclear bombs fell. The Tri-cities were divided into their respectful three settlement areas, Richland, Pasco, and New Kennewick. The area had originally been colonized by three merchant siblings, each leading their own group. The brothers had agreed on a pact, to share their resources and provide be in an alliance. The eldest brother settled Richland, where weapons, armor, and ammo would be created and sold. The middle age brother settled New Kennewick, where machinery, vehicles, ancient tech, and other related items were built, repaired, and sold. Finally, Pasco was settled by the youngest of the three, the sister. Being right in the most fertile land of the Tri-cities's healthy region, she used the area to grow food and purify water, selling much of it. However, even though they were friends, the three cities our now competing against each other or a nearby group, sometimes going into complete war. The only remnant of their former alliance is Tri-City Enterprises, which is a trading company that trades goods from all three cities. They're open to most people, with Richland open to everyone, even raiders and slavers.

Finally, Spokania was a Slaver town. Not much is known about the history of the town, except that it was created around 20 years or so after the Tri-cities nations were founded, and that it had a war with another group about 50 or so years ago with another group, which lead to the north of the pre-war city being taken by this group, only to lead to it being cut off and besieged by the slavers. No one is sure where the group came from, due to there being no settlements near the north of the city and Fairchild air force base being overrun by ghouls. But either way, the group is supposedly friendly, but no one knows for sure. This is due to them being besieged since they took northern Spokania. No one knows how they've survived this long, but some think that the slavers in Spokania originally had most of their farms and water pumps in the area, allowing the besieged group to survive without outside assistance from outside sources. Some can even occasionally hear gunfire from their, as a skirmish happens between the slavers and the group. We eventually concluded that the slavers who were in our Vault were likely from here, and it was confirmed once we saw that the vault was just north of Mead, which was one of the Spokane suburbs that the slavers occupied.

After this, we learned about more factions, big and small, as well as what each kind of people looked like, from raiders and slavers, to settlers and merchants. He then talked about some famous places from outside the Eastern Washington wasteland. From stories farther away, like the Capital Wasteland, the Commonwealth, and Midwestern brotherhood of steel, to ones closer to home, such as NCR and New Vegas Nation to the south in Oregon, California, and Nevada, remnants of Caesar's legion and other tribal groups to the east in eastern Idaho and Montana, some mysterious nation to the north, and constant war between the Brotherhood of Steel and some other groups in Western Washington.

After learning all of this, George decided on something. "Alright, since you know about the wasteland, what do you plan on doing now." We thought for a moment before I said "Well, creating a group to combat people like raiders and slavers doesn't sound like a bad idea." John asked, half sarcasticly "So you want us to create our own nation?" "Well, something like that anyway." I responded, getting suprised and then agreeing looks from everyone else.

"If you're going to do that, I'm guessing that you're gonna be setting up in Republic?" George asked, getting a nod from me. "Well, I figure that if I'm gonna be part of your nation, I might as well help you find a good spot and get some gear to start off, so it'll be a good time to put what I've taught you all into practice by combining this home search with a loot run, sound good?" After we agreed, he said "Alright, get loaded up, I'll go tell Isabell we're leaving."

About 15 minutes later, we were all loaded up and driving, taking two of Georges three trucks and our jeeps to Republic, leaving behind Isabell and Nat to watch over the farm and make sure nothing happens involving Elza or Jordan. 'Well, this is gonna be the start of what could possibly be a whole new chapter in the Washington wasteland's history, might as well get started.' I thought as I pushed down on the jeep's gas pedal, leading our caravan out of the farm and toward the town, filled with loot and possibilities.

 **Author's Note**

I want to get a few facts down in case any of you are confused.

First off, the fallout story is in the Universe where the actual 4 fallout games, along with Fallout: New Vegas and much of Fallout: Tactics is considered canon, although I barely know much about the three oldest games (Fallout 1, 2, and Tactics). Any other fallout games are not canon.

Next, the North Western Commonwealth is a place where much of the real-world's way of life was just being introduced. As a result, there will be a mix of fallout and real life content, such as architecture, technology, and weapons.

Next, my story will not include Alaska, due to it being isolated from the rest of the story's area, as well as much of of Oregon and possibly Idaho, due to Oregon being mostly controlled by the NCR and I not having too many ideas with Idaho, since it's technically gonna be tribals and such (maybe somewhat similar to Zion valley in Fallout: New Vegas except a little more 'modernized').

With all of that being said, there will be fewer episodes within the next month or so due to school testing. I'm doubting that there will be this amount of chapters in this short of a time until summer break as well, so expect some waiting. Also, while it's not likely this will happen, if anyone wants to draw fan art or mention the 'Fallout: Washington' story in any of their own work, feel free to do it, just let me know first via private messaging or a review. Anyway, I'll see you all soon, whether it be the next chapter or a '100 views' special chapter! :P


	9. Fallout: Washington Interlude 1

Interlude 1

100 VIEWS (SORT OF?) SPECIAL!

Location: Shady Sands, New California Republic

Faction: New California Republic

I was searching looking through some papers I had recently gotten about trade reports for the Hub when I heard a knock on my office door. "Come in." I said, giving the person permission to enter. The door opened, showing Chief of staff Moore entering the room with a smile.

"Good evening Mr. President, I just got the reports from up north, and they're looking good." She started, pride evident on her face. "Most of Oregon has been colonized, with final treaties being ratified in Portland and Torient Hills, although we needed to have an 'argument' with a couple of the settlements" a smirk quickly appearing on her face before disappearing as she continues "meanwhile, our scouts sent to Washington bring quite interesting news. They say that while the east is filled with slavers and other factions, there is both very fertile land and some intact infrastructure, with little radiation. Meanwhile, few of our scouts returned from the west, and they brought surprising news. Apparently, there is a brotherhood chapter there, fighting what our scouts think are the Enclave."

This news was good. If we advance after a few months, we should be able to not only secure very important land and resources, but also finish off some of the republic's oldest enemies. 'If only we went found this before Vegas' I thought, slightly grim.

After we had won the second battle of Hoover dam, the fabled 'Courier' had pushed us out, using a variety of allies he had gained. These apparently included a small brotherhood chapter, a securitron army, almost all of the settlements in the area, and even defectors! Although most of these were former desert rangers and were too shocking, some conscripts and even a few officers and 1st recon had left. I had been lucky enough to pin the blame on Oliver, letting me keep my spot as president and gave me a chance to win the election soon after.

Since then, he had turned the Mojave wasteland into the New Vegas nation. Since the battle, relations had somewhat cooled, with trade between the 2 nations happening at a small scale, not including the Gun runners, which had set up numerous shops and manufactories in the nation to avoid taxes.

Returning to the present, I address Moore "I want you to prepare an expedition to Washington to happen within the next two months. Have General Hsu go for eastern Washington while you take the west. I'm tasking the 1st, 2nd, 5th, and 8th Infantry divisions to your mission, along with the 2nd Mechanized division and the heavy infantry corps. Meanwhile, Hsu will take the 4th and 9th Infantry and 1st Mechanised divisions. The rest of the organizing and 'how' you will do your tasks is up to you, although I expect not to hear of you taking every settlement you see, got it?" I finished, giving her a glare.

"Yes sir!" She quickly said, proceeding to leave the room. I shake my head and return to my paperwork, signing them off with 'yes' or 'no' or occasionally signed with my name, Aaron Kimball.

Location: Cascade mountains, project WARF bunker

Faction: Enclave

"Alright men, let's get this meeting started." The call sounded throughout the bunker, silencing all the discussions happening between the various commanders, project leads, and leaders. While usually these meetings would be extremely boring, they've been getting more interesting lately as challenges and new objectives have been given.

"Okay, project heads, give your reports." said President Winter. There were about a dozen of these people, each supervising and leading a different area of science, engineering, etc. The only exceptions were ones assigned to a special project, which was often a new or pre-war artifact. Each of these people gave their reports. To cut it short, most of them were reporting normal standards, with the only exceptions being the head mechanist saying that his team have developed a new engine for the vertibirds, and the head of project skyrise saying that the project

itself was about 86 % complete, with the completion date being about 6 months away.

After these reports were given, Winter asked for the field reports, which was my cue to stand up and address everyone. "Well so far we seem be doing okay on most fronts. Our scouts have once again confirmed that no large factions have appeared east of the Cascades except for the Tri-Cities, Spokania, and New Coulee, but the Tri's are too focused competing against each other to organize to effectively fight us, and those slavers in Spokania are too scared of us or pre-occupied to go against us. The only one that could fight us is New Coulee, but they alone couldn't hope to defeat us. The scouts have also confirmed that all unsecured assets in the area are still within usable capacity, whether they're just abandoned, slightly damaged, or being used by their current controllers."

I paused to look around the room. Everyone was caught in the moment, eagerly listening to what I have to report. So smugly and with a bit of pride, I continue.

"In the North, our ally is gaining strength, absorbing or killing off any settlements they find." Few people actually knew who our allies really were, and the president and I intended to keep it that way for now. "Our plan will come to fruit soon, and we'll have more men and supplies than ever before. As for the south, the NCR is consolidating control in Oregon, and it won't be long before they cross over the Columbia river and advance into Washington. However, they'll likely be too bogged down by slavers, settlements, and the brotherhood before they reach us, and when they do, we'll be ready with our allies."

"Now finally for our western report, the brotherhood has been making some ground in Seattle, but it's small compared to what we do hold. Meanwhile, our expeditions into the Hoh rainforest have been continually going missing, so we've had to pull out from there. Besides these reports and continuing sabotage by the 'overwatcher', we're doing pretty good." I finished up, letting everyone taking it in. After a few moments of silence, the president said "Good job Commander Greg, why don't you get yourself a cup of coffee." I nodded and exited the room, leaving the others behind to tell the specifics of my reports and anything else they had. 'Coffee, here I come!' I thought with a smirk.

Location: ?

Faction: ?

I sighed as I leaned back in the chair, watching all of the groups of the wasteland continue on with their lives, whether it be bartering, scavenging, talking, travelling, tinkering, or fighting. I look down from the various screens to look at the reports I had gotten. I had lost 2 eyebots to Spokania slavers and another to the Enclave this month alone. Although it's true that I had a large amount of them, and I've been able to hack a few more from the Enclave, there's not an infinite amount.

I looked back on my childhood then. I had originally been from the Capital Wasteland, where I was living a happy life 'well, as happy as life could get in a hostile, radioactive wasteland' I thought. I and my two friends, James and Jessica Porce, were planning to become radio broadcasters like DJ Three Dog. I had also taken an interest in technology, learning about it from a former brotherhood scribe who lived in Rivet City and a lady named Moira in Megaton.

However, when the Enclave arrived, we were one of the first settlements they attacked. Out of the couple hundred or so of settlers that live there, only about 38 escaped, including me and my friends. We had hidden out in Rivet until the Enclave war ended, and from there split up. Some people stayed in Rivet or other Capital settlements, while others went north to the Commonwealth. I was in a group of seven with my friends and a couple of others, including my scribe friend, Oreon, travelled toward the west coast, looking for a whole new start. As a thanks to Moira for her teaching me, I had brought with several of her 'Survival Wasteland Guides' to give to people.

We had encountered few people or problems for most of the journey, managing to stay clear of raiders as well as scattered tribes from what people called Caesar's remnants. The real problem was deciding on the final destination. In the end we had split up, with Oregon, James, Jessica, and I heading to the Washington wasteland while the other three went to New Vegas.

After another month or so we finally reached Washington. We had settled down in an old house while we talked about what we wanted to do. We had discovered that besides a few very local radio stations, there were none in Washington. In the end, we decided that Jessica's radio station would cover western Washington while James's would cover eastern Washington. I decided to do a national news station, covering major events and developments in both regions. Oreon would help me maintain this large station.

A few months later, we had found an old military bunker. After a bit of repairing and searching, we had repaired it's radio broadcaster and brought the bunker's numerous eyebots and camera feeds online. We decided that this would be my station, since it's broadcast could reach the entire Washington wasteland and it was close to the border between the two separate areas of Washington. We soon split up, with James and Jessica each taking some of the eyebots to help with there own information gathering.

By the end of the year, all of us had set up our own stations and were broadcasting, already gaining popularity. We occasionally work on a shared report or I help exchange messages between the two siblings, but for the most part, we work alone. Of course, I had Oreon to help me for the first couple years before he died to cancer, but now the only help I have are the A.I and robotic systems in the bunker.

I was just preparing to go to the studio room when I took a look at one of the screens. It showed the recent vault dwellers, and apparently they were heading to Republic. Once I had sawn that slavers had been near vault 24, I had sent a couple of eyebots to keep an eye on them. I was glad I did, because the Vault dwellers escaping from them and hostile vault guards really surprised me. Since then I had been watching them make their journey. I didn't know why, but I felt like this group was special and could make a huge impact on the wasteland. The fact that they were well organized, did things very well, and were vault dwellers added to this feeling.

"Well either way, I'm definitely keeping an eye on them, and maybe out for them too." I said to myself, leaving the surveillance room, walking toward the radio studio.

 **I would like to say thank you for 100 views and for supporting the story! I can't believe I made it this far already, so once again, thank you. I would had done discussions from other groups like the brotherhood of steel, the Tri-cities and the slavers in Spokania, but it was getting late, and I had to cut them. I also have some good and bad news. The good news is that the next special, which will be at 500 views, will be a Q &A. How it will work is that you can send a review to me, labelled clearly for the Q&A. I will be answering questions about me, the story, and any future in my time in fanfiction. Note that I will not answer questions that are too personal, involve serious spoilers for the story, or anything else that is inapropriate or that I say is not worthy of being answered. Now the bad news is that I'm going to be limiting the number of chapters I post. It will be likely down to one or two chapters per week until summer. Also expect there to be times where there are no chapters due to finals testing in school or something else equally occupying. Thank you, and remember! Stay Determined! (yes, that's going to be my new ending quote :D)**


	10. Fallout: Washington Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Date: March 7, 2292

Location: Republic

'So here we are' I thought as our convoy arrived at Republic from the south, stopping at an old church. The plan we made up was simple, we would go through all of the stores and anywhere else of value, find a central place to set up camp and store our loot, and then come back the following day and go through all the housing in the southern section of town and anywhere else we skipped.

We would split up into three different parties. Roy, Alex, and Chris would take a jeep to check the hospital and northern stores, which included the sheriff's office, looting them and checking the hospital to see whether or not it would be a good base. George, me, John, and Dusk would take the eastern portion of town with a truck and the second jeep, and finally Alice, Chris, Lucy, and Boxer would check out the western and southern areas with the remaining truck.

As we divided up into our three teams, George spoke up "Alright kids, be careful and on alert. While the town's mostly empty, there's still going to be the occasional radroach and ghoul, especially in the north, so be extra alert north team.". Roy and Chris nodded in response, with Alex letting out a grunt as he climbed down from the truck he was in. George then continued "Alright, just make sure not to go out of town, since there are other people living nearby the town." He said, reminding us of the numerous farmers to the north, a small group of raiders who lived on the highway to the west of Republic, and a follower's of the apocalypse outpost that was in the old high school on the road back east to the red rocket gas station.

We nodded and went our own ways, starting the job of cleaning out Republic

 **3 Hours Later**

It was about three hours since we had started, and we had made good progress. We had already looted a small amount of gas stations, grocery stores, private businesses, the federal bank, and the court. It was going good for the other teams as well, with Chris's team already scavenging through the western portion and already working their way south, making their way to the city hall and the bank. Meanwhile, Alex's team had finished up their scavenging and were now at the hospital, clearing it out. I had heard over our radio the there were a few ghouls, but they were being dealt with. Otherwise, the hospital looked like it was in good condition, with only a couple of holes in the perimeter's concrete fence and damage to one of the outer buildings, along with the more than 200 years worth of decay.

I was walking in the street, next to the slowly moving truck, with the jeep behind us, when I saw a glimmer in a nearby grocery store. Curious, I went in the investigate, motioning for George to follow. As we entered the store I took notice of my surroundings. The store was small, with a checkout counter on the left, and 5 isles in front of me, with moldy and out of date products, with an occasional skeleton lying on the ground. But what got my attention was the metal door in the back, with a slight glow coming from a small window in it. As I walked toward it, I prepped my m4, and I heard George pump his shotgun, ready to meet any threats.

We soon reached the door and after waiting a moment, breached the room. What I saw surprised me. Half of the room was covered in what looked like a blue tinted force field. What really got my attention though, was the food inside of it. There were breads, cheeses, meats, chips, cans, and fruit. "There was a Preservation field here?!" I looked over at George, who was just as shocked as I was, staring at the field. "If I had known that this was here, I would've come here months ago." At my slightly confused look, he chuckled and said "I've been looking for this kind of thing for a while now, and I would have searched this store, except the only grocery stores that usually do have them are ones belonging to big companies, and even then they're usually only found in the bigger towns and cities."

After a little while and a discussion with Dusk, we decided to lock up the room and leave it for now, promising to return once we had a proper storage area set up. As I left the store, I wiped my face with a piece of cloth, looking around the town. Besides some minor decay and an occasional crashed car or more damaged building, the town looked to be in good condition.

 **4 Hours later**

It was starting to get dark by the time we all finished up and met at the hospital. Everyone had little difficulty scavenging, occasionally encountering a ghoul, radroach, or mole rat. The only ones who had trouble were the hospital team, where they had some trouble with a bunch of ghouls who were on one of the top floors. Even so, they managed to clear them out within half an hour.

We had agreed to leave behind anything too big, heavy, or numerous to scavenge later, marking the locations on the map and taking the smaller and useful items. We collected numerous guns, ammo, food, water, med supplies, tools, and some other utility items. We left the other supplies (like the bulk food, construction material, etc.) to either be collected within the next few days, or to be left there until we needed them or had an efficient way to transport and store them.

"A toast! To a great beginning!" John hollered, raising his bottle of water in the air. A few of the others responding in kind, or just nodded in agreement. As they did so, I looked out of a nearby window facing south and I could see one of our jeeps coming back from the farm. As a moving in gift, George had left us the two trucks and said we're welcome back to the farm anytime. Roy had gone ahead and driven the George back in the jeep, and was now returning with Nat.

I looked to the right, seeing the sun set, a sight that I haven't gotten tired of since we left the vault a few days ago. I heard a shuffle and I looked over to see Dusk standing right next to me, watching the sunset with me. Looking back at it, I thought of all the hardships that we'll soon have to face. We'll have to scavenge the rest of the town and fortify the hospital, repairing its perimeter defenses and bringing its front blast door, it's couple of lobby turrets, and the camera system back online. We'll have to meet up and discuss relations with the nearby groups and possibly take out the raider gang. We'll have to recruit more people and prepare them to fight against scum like raiders and slavers. I thought over these things and more, wondering how we would be able to accomplish this. Then, Dusk nudged me, making me look over at her curiously. "You're thinking about the future, aren't you?" She asked, knowing what I was just thinking. "Yeah" I responded "You're not the only one, but for now, let's just relax and leave the thinking and planning for tomorrow, okay?" She said, slight concern on her face. After chuckling, I said "Alright, I guess that's a good idea." She smiled and taking my hand, she led me back to the group.

About an hour later I was in bed. We had agreed to take our own separate rooms and had them on the third floor. John had agreed to take the first shift and Chris the second after midnight.

I heard a knock on the door, and looking up, I saw Dusk standing there. "Hey Adam, do you mind if I can sleep here tonight, I just can't seem to sleep." Nodding sleepily, I patted the other side of my bed, earning a soft smile from Dusk as she walked over and crawled under the covers.

"Good night Adam." She said, starting to drift off to sleep. I replied in kind, turning on my side and closing my eyes, resting myself for the tasks needed to be done within the next few days.


	11. Fallout: Washington Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Date: March 8, 2292

Location: Republic

After I woke up, everyone went to do their own duties. Alice started working on bring the hospital's defences online, with me helping repair them, The defences consisted of two mark 3 turrets inside the main lobby and steel blast shields that cover the main entrance, the two secondary entrances, and all windows on the bottom floor. Meanwhile, Dusk went on to catalogue everything we had looted. Everyone else was either working on repair or cleaning the hospital or looting the residential area and any stores that were missed, with the exception of Alex, who took a jeep to check up on Elza and Jordan, which were both healing greatly.

It was around noon when John noticed smoke rising from the north. After notifying George, he said that there were some farms in the area. We weren't sure exactly what to do, since we didn't want to rush in blindly, but then I remembered my Mister Gutsy. I ran to the jeep where it was waiting, activating it "This unit is fully operational, what are my orders, sir!" The Mister Gutsy exclaimed, even giving a small salute with one of its mechanical arms.

After chuckling to myself, I said "Unit, you will scout north to the big fire over there." I pointed at it, letting the Gutsy see it's objective "You will provide live video feed of what's there and do not engage anyone, understand?" The gutsy took a second to process this and said "Sir, yes sir!" Proudly but with also a little disappointment, no doubt at not being able to get into a fight. Since we had left the vault, I had managed to upgrade the Gutsy significantly, giving him two weapons. The first one was a mister handy arm saw, which I took with me when we left the vault. There was also a mark 2 turret attached to another arm, which I got from a scrapped turret at the farm. There, I had installed both of these weapons and tweaked the Gutsy's system so it would work. Even so, I decided it wouldn't be good to combat test the unit just yet.

Me and the others decided on a battle plan. We would send the gutsy ahead of us by ten minutes and then go after him in the jeeps and one of the trucks. We would leave behind Nat and Dusk to watch over the hospital, but what surprised me is who else we would have on our trip, Elza. She had gotten well enough to jog and wanted to come with us, saying that any farmers in the area would likely recognize her, plus she was good with a sniper rifle. After a small argument and some persuasion, she got Isabell and George to agree to let her go with us. I told them that we would make sure she returns safe after I saw that they were extremely worried.

As I saw the Mister Gutsy fly north, I looked over at the rest of us preparing for battle. Everyone was was getting ready for combat, grabbing weapons, checking ammo and medical supplies, and putting on armor. I myself put on my CTM helmet, a kevlar vest, a combat rifle with four magazines, a desert eagle with two magazines, two combat knives, a fragmentation grenade, a walkie talkie radio, and a small medical kit consisting of two stimpacks, a shot of Med-X, some bandages, and some disinfectant. I also grabbed a red dot sight and attached it to my combat rifle, giving myself better accuracy with the gun.

Within 8 minutes we were all ready to move out, and a few minutes later we started up the road, heading toward the northern farms. We had the two jeeps at the front and end of the convoy, each one with two people, a gunner and driver. The gunners were John and Chris, and the drivers were Lucy and Roy. The rest of us were in the truck in the middle, with Alex driving. There was little talk as we drove toward the farms.

About half way there, Alice gasps and motions for me to come over to her. When I do I see why she gasped. She had my laptop to provide a camera feed to the Gutsy, and it looked like it just arrived to the farms, or what was left of them. The gutsy was positioned on a small hill overlooking about six spaced out farms, which were the closest ones to Republic. We could see that four of the barns were overrun and in ruins, while a fifth one was on fire, sending up the stream of black smoke that let us know of the attack. What got our attention though was the fight that was happening at the sixth, and closest, farm. There, what we could guess were raiders were attacking the farm, trying to get to it. However, there were a lot of people in the farm, and combined with some of the remaining perimeter turrets, they were keeping the raiders back for now. After seeing this, I radioed to the other cars what was happening, as well as a plan that was now developing.

 **Outside of Pearson family farm**

"What the bloody hell is taking so long!?" Exclaimed the furious raider leader. "We were supposed to have taken them down by now!"

The other few raiders present looked at each other before one of them mustered enough courage to speak. "We don't know sir, they're just mowin down our men." The leader looked at this raider, then at the others before saying, then get the job done, bring up the shredder." He said, stomping away.

'Why couldn't this be easy' he thought, shaking his head. The attack on the other five farms had worked pretty well, they managed to loot the places, kill some of the people, and gain strength. However, this one farm seemed to hold out against us. The other attacks had only cost two raiders, while this one was already at a dozen. "Bro's gonna be mad about this, but at least we'll take the farm." the leader said, as he saw the shredder being driven over. The gang only had a few vehicles, a couple of rusted up motorcycles and this.

The shredder was the crown jewel of the gang, as it was like a tank. It was a pickup truck that had a plow at the front, as well as armor plating all along the sides and front, and bulletproof glass to protect the driver. But the best thing about it was it's armament, a minigun on the back, with a steel shield cover to protect the gunner. It was one of the greatest things that the gang ever owned, and the leader loved it like a son.

So he was quite shocked to see it burst into flames in a fiery explosion.

He couldn't move for a few moments, but when he did, he was angry. "Who the hell did that!" He yelled, turning toward the farm. But before he fully faced it, he caught a glimpse of movement. Looking toward it, he was shocked to see a group of people pouring over the nearby hill firing carbines and combat rifles at the raiders as they went down the hill. At the crest, he could see two jeeps firing machine guns, tearing groups of raiders into pieces.

He started to turn to run away, but a bullet from the farm sliced through his chest, taking him down. As he layed on the ground holding his wound, he looked up and saw a figure standing over him. The man had short black hair and was about five feet and a half feet tall. He had a vault suit on, along with a weird helmet, a pipboy, and several pieces of armor. As he stood there, the man lifted his pistol up, and the last thing the raider warband leader saw was a flash of light.

 **Pearson family farm**

 **(Adam's pov)**

I walked away from the dead raider leader, towards where my friends were gathering around. I looked over everyone, and apart from a graze on Chris's left arm, everyone was unharmed on our side. Looking over, I could see people starting to come out of the farmhouse and barns, lowering their weapons but still wary of us. However, most of that went away when they saw that Elza was with us.

After some talking with the farmers, we saw that while the majority of the farmers survived the attack, most were now displaced. While a couple of families decided to rebuild their farms, most didn't know what to do. But then, Chris suggested something. "Hey, why don't you come with us back to Republic, we could use the extra people." While a few of them declined, most of those not settling back down there came with us. While most of them were farmers and their families, there were a few other people. There were three people that identified themselves as former guards at Malo, managing to escape from it when the slavers attacked. Another person was actually a member of the followers. She had come from the outpost to check on some of the people here when the farms were attacked. She asked if she could get a ride down back to the hospital since her motorcycle was destroyed, and we agreed. Finally, there was an older man. He was about fifty years old and had a scar running down the left side of his face, likely from a knife. After a bit of reluctance, the man identified himself as a former member of the NCR's first recon unit, which was apparently special forces. He was armed with a powerful sniper rifle, equipped with a powerful scope that had night vision and thermal options, as well as a bipod and laser pointer.

After some looting and counting, we found the total cost and loot numbers of the battle. About 7 farmers and 32 raiders had been killed, with another 4 farmers wounded. About 20 farmers decided to stay behind, while 25 decided to come with us, including 3 of the wounded. Besides some bottle caps and an occasional stimpack, grenade, or good weapon, most of the gear was useless, so we let the farmers staying behind divide up the rest. We sent Roy back in one of the jeeps to bring the other truck and ask George to use his own to help transport people and supplies.

 **8 hours later**

We had finally finished transporting everyone and their supplies and belongings over to the hospital and help them set in. Dusk had just returned from returning the follower worker, Ammy, to the follower's outpost and from bringing Elza back to her farm. They thanked her and said that they would send someone over in a few days to discuss some sort of alliance. During this, me and a few of the others, along with some vengeful farmers, attacked the raider's home base. Luckily most of them died in the farm attack, so all that were left were a handful of poorly prepared raiders and an angry leader, who had apparently lost his brother in the attack.

When we got back, bringing with us the loot from the camp, we quickly organized a small militia to defend the hospital and provide security. The militia had about ten people, including John, Roy, the former 1st recon member Richard, the 3 Malo security guards, and four farmers who didn't have anything else to do. John and Richard will be training the new militia members for the next couple days, teaching them proper gun usage and management, physical endurance, hand to hand combat, and basic tactical skills.

Meanwhile, we have brought the hospital security online, started repairs on the the outer wall, added a metal gate at the entrance, and have even taken the two protectrons from the sheriff's office and reprogrammed them to help with security. Soon, we'll create a few guard towers along the soon to be finished walls, add some turrets, and set up a sniper post on the hospital roof for Richard. He and everyone who's joined us has been staying in the hospital rooms. After some thinking, we've decided to have floors 3 to 7 be used for residential purposes.

Thinking about all we have already accomplished within a few days, it makes me feel like we could do anything if we work towards it. Of course, we still had many more tasks to do. We had to relocate all of the town's resources to either the hospital or one of the nearby warehouses. We needed to gain more members, create a stable supply of food and water, and get in contact with some trading caravans. We needed to secure the rest of the town, gain more strength, and soon take the war to the slavers once an army has been built.

I started walking around the hospital, taking notes on things that could be improved on or new ideas entirely. As I was walking around, I looked outside the hospital compound. Across the street were several empty and looted shops and stores, along with trash littering the ground, a broken window or two, and an occasional rusted out car. However, as I was about to step back into the compound, I noticed something in an alleyway between a pawnshop and a clothes store. When I looked closer I saw it was a skeleton. Skeletons like these were common around here, and there were even a couple of others nearby. But what got my interest was that the skeleton was wearing a military uniform, and it didn't look like it belonged to an regular soldier either.

I quickly hopped the wall before jogging over to the skeleton, making a mental note to put barbed wire on top of the walls. I went over to the skeleton, and looking closer I could see that it was an officer. 'What was a uniformed officer like him doing here?' I thought to myself as I checked him. I decided to see if there was anything interesting on him. After looting the skeleton, I found a holotape, a 'high clearance' passcard, and a small gun case. Opening the case, I found a well preserved and highly modified desert eagle pistol called 'Night breaker', alone with 5 magazines for it. After staring at it in aw for a moment, I shut the case, grabbed it, the passcard, and the holotape, and returned to the hospital.

I quickly went to my room, locking my door so I wouldn't be disturbed. I quickly looked around my room, which was a simple bed, mirror, a couple of cabinets, and a desk with a chair. Placing the objects on my desk, I took the holotape and put it in my pipboy, activating the ancient message on it.

" _U.S Army Personal log #23_

 _October 24, 2077_

 _Republic, Washington_

 _Colonel Jason Quint_

 _The nukes weren't the only thing that fell. A missile hit at 1100 hours, landing just to the north of town. An hour after it fell, people started *cough cough* dying on the streets, and we realized that it was a chemical weapon. I sealed the bunker, but by then whatever was in that missile had already gotten in. Everyone's...dead. I waited the night out in a small safe room. I myself got infected, but not as much as th- *cough* the others. The only good thing is that the virus has dissipated and is now gone, letting me leave without further infection. I've *cough* sealed the bunker, although I didn't get a chance to activate any of its defenses except for a couple of protectrons at the entrance. I'm going to try to *cough* get to the nearby hospital. Maybe there's a medication there that cou- *hacking cough for a minute or so* oh no, that's blood. I *cough* better hurry before I'm dead. This is Colo- *cough* Colonel Jason Quint, signing off."_

The message ended, leaving me in a swirling pool of thoughts and emotions. After a few minutes I managed to sort myself out and looked out the window, seeing the final rays of the sun as it was almost below the horizon. As I did, I looked slightly down at the town. 'Somewhere out there is a military bunker...' I thought '...and we're going to find it!'.


	12. Fallout: Washington Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Date: March 9, 2292

Location: Republic

"A bunker!?" John, Dusk, and Chris yelled at the same time. Everyone else was equally shocked or surprised, just not voicing it. I had decided to wait until the following morning until telling everyone about the bunker. By then, It had been agreed on that a sort of council be created to advise over the actions of our group and lead them. After the formation of the council and a small discussion, it was decided that I would be the leader, which I had a feeling would happen. We had also converted a small conference room into our meeting room. So now here I was, talking about what I found with the council, as well as Richard and George, who had come over to check on our growing community.

"Well, this certainly makes things interesting." Says George, looking interested. "We'll have to find this bunker and secure it, does anyone have any ideas as to where it could be?"

"My guess is that it would either be at some sort of official place, like the town hall or court, or somewhere hidden outside of town, like in the forest." Richard speculates, thinking hard about it.

"They would have kept it in these places to ensure better security and concealment."

"That is true, but it looked like the colonel was trying to make it to the hospital on foot, so the bunker probably isn't in the forest, otherwise he wouldn't have made it that close." I reply, trying to figure out where the bunker could be. "Has anyone found protectrons in the town yet?" I ask, remembering that there was supposed to be a couple of them guarding the entrance to the bunker.

"Besides the couple we found at the police station, we haven't found any, and those that were there were deactivated and a police model." Alice replies.

"Is there anywhere in town that we haven't scavenged yet?" I ask everyone. Chris immediately replies, "Well, there are around a dozen or so houses left, but besides that, everything else has been looted."

'Where could it be!?' I thought as I tried to think of anywhere it could be, or at least any clues. After thinking for a couple of minutes, I finally reach a solution that was acceptable. "Well, I guess we'll have to just keep an eye out for now. We can't afford a several day search for the bunker, not yet anyway. In the meantime though, I want any government, army, or large company buildings to be searched again. I would also like someone to go to the town hall and go through the residential files and find the homes of anyone who used to live in or near Republic that worked in the government or army. Once that's finished, search through their homes and try to find anything, any questions." I look around briefly and then finish up. "Good, this meeting is adjourned and everyone can continue on with their daily tasks.

With that, everyone got up and started moving. Some people, like Richard and Alex, immediately left, heading back to jobs that they needed to get back to. The rest stood around and talked with each other, sharing stories and experiences that have happened recently, ideas they've come up with, or the bunker that I just mentioned. As I was getting ready to leave, George came over.

"You know, I got to give you people credit." he said, clearly impressed with us. It's been less than a week since you've left the bunker, and you've already established a small community with sufficient food, water, meds, ammo, and enough guns and vehicles to keep most raiders away. Heck, you already got a reputation." At my confused look he asked "Haven't any of you used the radio?" After saying no, George chuckled and told me to check the radio feature of my pip-boy. I soon turned to the radio feature and saw 5 radio broadcasts on my pipboy's screen. Taking a look at them, I saw that three of them were unavailable to reach. I showed George the screen and asked him what I should do.

"Well, PNWS doesn't come on for about five days since it's a weekly broadcast unless something major is happening. However, EWR should be on in a few minutes, so let's switch to that." Nodding in agreement, I clicked on the radio channel tag marked 'Eastern Washington Radio' and turned down the volume a little as classical music started coming out. For a few minutes we waited for the news broadcast to start, talking about how we had apparently gained a reputation. The slavers back in Spokania had sent out a broadcast on loop putting a bounty on our heads. Each of us had a thousand cap bounty alive, which was quite impressive. As we finished talking about this, the song finished so we turned up the volume, just in time for the broadcast to begin, a calm yet formal and captivating voice coming out of the pipboy's speakers.

" _Hello fellow wastelanders. It's me, James Porce, and I'm here to bring everyone their regular noon report."_

" _First off, it has been confirmed from both merchants and my own sources that Malo has been overrun by slavers. Whether they're from Spokania or another slaver den is unknown, but either way this is troublesome due to them not usually coming out near the Republic area unless it's a long-range patrol or expedition, and this was definitely neither. So if anyone is going through the area within the next couple weeks, I advise that you find an alternate route until things cool down there. I would also advise any people living in the area to either evacuate or dig in until the slavers live, but the choice is up to you."_

" _Speaking of slavers, they've apparently raised the bounty of the vault dwellers' to 1,500 caps per person alive. Even so, I wouldn't recommend going after them. From what I've heard, they're well armed, very well organized and efficient, and haven't been seen since they escaped vault 24. Besides, do we really want the smug slavers in Spokania think that thing can do anything they can and get away with it, using us as desperate pawns in a race to find these people…?"_

" _...No. We can not allow these bastards to gain any more of an advantage then they already have. So if any of you see anyone lookin to claim the bounty, stall them from finding those dwellers. Slash the tires on their ride, dump their food out, hell, even telling them the wrong directions to a gas station would help."_

" _With that out of the way, I have been receiving reports of increasing activity along the Cascade borders from both Enclave and super mutants. Some witnesses claim that the mutants attacked an Enclave outpost and are now being pushed back. Others claim that the Enclave started it, attacking the mutants along the Okanogan frontier. Either way, one thing is certain. The Enclave are attacking, and hard. Super mutants and any humans present have been killed or driven away from Wenatchee and Kitt, with sightings of Enclave troops as far as the outskirts of Yakima ruins and Royal. Mayor Nickola of Royal is currently putting together a militia to try to stand against the Enclave, and there are rumors that New Coulee is sending troops in to assist. I'm not sure if they'll win or not, but every little bit helps. If you want to help, make your way to Royal or New Coulee to sign up for the militia."_

" _And finally is an update on our big neighbors to the south. The NCR has been ceased their expansion just south of the Columbia river. Most of the settlements south of the river have been disbanded, abandoned, or are under NCR control. The only exceptions are land within the Washington and Idaho state lines, and the major settlements of New Ortley, Junction, and Longview station. Normally I'd hope that this would be the end of their expansion, but with a wide , fertile land just in front of them, they'll likely be on the move soon. *sigh* And I thought the Mojave would've taught them a lesson, I guess I was wrong."_

" _Well, that's all I got for all you wastelanders out there on my side of the Pacific Northwest, stay safe folks."_

The broadcast ended with a click. Amazed, I glanced up only to realise we had caught the attention of everyone in the room, as well as a couple of guards who were standing in the door frame, looking in. "Well, that was something." John muttered, before clapping his hands once. "Alright everyone, back to work." He said as he got up and left the room, leaving everyone to come out of their trance and get back to their own work or conversations.

"Well, I guess I'll show you around George." I said, motioning for him to come with me. We left the conference room and I started leading him through the hospital, giving him a tour of what we've done so far and things we had under development or planned.


	13. Fallout: Washington Chapter 11

Chapter 11

March 12, 2292

Location: Republic

"Hey Adam!" yelled a voice. I finished up my discussion with John and turned around, seeing Dusk walk towards me. "Hey Dusk, what's up?" I ask, curious as to what she wanted to say. "Alice wanted me to get you, she says she found something." She responded, excitement in her voice. "Is it the bunker?" I ask, following Dusk to the entrance of the hospital. "No, but it could be a clue to it's location."

I followed her without further discussion down into the basement. There were two levels to the basement, with the top level being our storage for food, water, weapons, ammo, medical supplies, and any noteworthy pieces of technology. The level below us housed the hospital generator, running on a fusion core. Also on the level were a couple of backup generators and a computer server bank that housed all of the hospital's information, as well as any data that the loot teams had collected.

Walking into the first basement level, I saw Alice nearby, typing on a terminal connected to a bunch of machines and equipment. Looking at it, I noticed that a decent amount of it was radio equipment or similar. "So what do you need to show me Alice?" I said, breaking Alice out of her concentration.

After she gathered herself, she responded "Well I was working on adjusting the radio equipment down here to receive transmissions from farther distances, and not just the news broadcasts too. There's likely a decent amount of local radio usage all around the Washington wasteland, and I figured that with a bit of tinkering and adjusting, we could listen in on it, or at least those in the eastern part of the wasteland." She paused, quickly looking over something, before continuing "Well I was just messing with the settings, when I got this over the radio." Alice then flipped a switch, emitting a sort of staticy noise.

After listening to it for a moment, I asked "Ok, so what about it?"

"I was about to get to that." she responded, quickly looking at me with a slightly irritated look. "After a bit of tuning, I found that it was a radio disturbance, somewhat similar to what the military used to block out radio communications." She said, letting it sink in. After a bit a thinking, I realised what she was thinking of. "Can you pinpoint where it is?" I asked. "It'll take a while to get the exact location, but it seems to be coming from western Republic, at the outskirts." Nodding, I started to leave, but then turned back around and said "Let me know when you find the exact location, I'm getting a team together to check the area out."

 **1 Hour later**

I jumped out of the jeep as it pulled up to the office complex, holding a combat shotgun in my hands. Behind me, the second jeep and one of the trucks pulled up, each unloading people. Most of the militia was with me, as well as Dusk, Alex, and Chris. "Alright people, let's move on the objective. Remember your roles, let's move out." I then ran up to the door, waiting for everyone else to get to me before breaching it.

The office complex had already been searched two days, with nothing unusual being found. It had belonged to RobCo though, so there was a decent amount of good loot from it. Just ten minutes ago, Alice had contacted me via walkie-talkie, letting me know that this was the location, I then got the search team loaded up in most of our vehicles and got them here. The plan was to have two people guard the first floor and another to go onto the roof as lookout while the rest of us go into the basement. The door down there had been locked when the loot team had originally searched the place. It was too hard to bust through, so the team marked it off to search latter. Know we were here, equipped with a couple of cutting torches to break it the door open if need be if I couldn't hack the security system.

As we moved toward the door, I looked around me at the nearby office rooms, each holding a terminal or computer, a desk, a few chairs, and a couple other things. I glanced up and saw broken lights and an occasional gun turret, offline and motionless. Shaking my head, I focus on the objective at hand, the basement door right in front of me. As I got to it, I immediately went to the wall terminal next to the door. 'Well this is going to take a while' I thought as I saw how advanced the security system was.

 **20 minutes later**

'Finally' I thought as I finished hacking into the door controls, opening the security door. I had just about authorized the cutters twice before I got the password, ' _Nocturnal'._ I then stepped through after motioning everyone to follow.

After walking through a small corridor leading down, I came upon a second door, this one with a key card slider right next to another wall terminal. Looking at it for a moment, I got the dead officer's key card and slide it through the slider. A *ping* then sounded at the terminal, and it now a few options. I used it to open the door, as well as turn power back on and disable any online defences.

Stepping back, I motioned for Roy to take lead, following him after he passed me. Stepping through the door, I was amazed at what I saw. The entire room was two or three stories high, and must have been half a football field from wall to wall. Off to the right was a ramp leading upwards, likely for vehicles coming from the surface. On the left were a few parked military and RobCo vehicles, as well as a small lift that went up to a giant ring of catwalks and ledges above us. But what really got my attention was what was in front of us, a military green giant blast door, covering most of the front wall. On the center was a white circle and star. In front of the doors were a couple of deactivated protectrons.

'We found it.' I thought as I gazed at the entrance to the army bunker.


	14. Fallout: Washington Chapter 12

Chapter 12

March 12, 2292

Location: Republic

"Alright everyone, form up!" I yelled back to the team, which jogging into the giant room from behind me. After everyone formed up around me, I began giving out instructions. "Alright everyone, let's get into position before I open the door. Richard, you're team will take the left flank, John your team's going right. Roy, you're team will be center, so get ready for anything. Any questions?" I look around briefly before saying "Let's move it!"

As we moved into position, I wondered how well we would do if the bunker was inhabited, or at least had its defences online. Besides me, there were twelve of us here, divided into three teams. Each team had three militia members and one of the three additions, Alex, Chris, or Dusk, who were on Roy, Richard, and John's teams respectfully. Besides Richard, each militia member wore reinforced riot armor, along with a kevlar vest. There weapons consisted of either an M4, a combat rifle, or a combat shotgun. The exceptions to this were John and Richard, who had a laser rifle and sniper rifle respectfully. Each militia member also carried a sidearm, a grenade, a walkie talkie, and two combat knives.

Meanwhile Dusk, Chris, and Alex wore different equipment. They each had kevlar vests and army helmets, as well as reinforced vault security armor. Chris's weapons consisted of an M4, two revolvers, a combat knife, and two grenades. Alex carried an MP5 submachine gun, an M9 pistol, a combat knife, and a full medical kit, ready to treat anyone who was hurt. Dusk had brought a combat rifle, two knifes, a radio to call back to base, and a small assortment of technical equipment. I myself had on a reinforced kevlar vest, reinforced vault security armor, my CTH for head protection, an M4 equipped with an advanced firing mechanism and holo sight, Night Breaker, a combat knife, and two grenades.

Shaking myself from my thoughts, I ran up to the terminal that accessed the large door's mechanism. Quickly hacking into the system, I look back at everyone and ask "Everyone ready?". I receive nods, some hesitant. Looking back at the terminal, I prepare to open the door. 'Here we go' I thought as I typed the command, activating alarms in the room. I quickly back up and watch as the giant door splits in two, going to either side. I also saw a second door behind the first slowly raising upwards, likely acting as a blast shield in case the first door fell.

As the doors raised upwards, I motioned for the teams to follow me before running in myself. In front of me was what looked like a checkpoint with the gate closed. After waiting for everyone, I used my pipboy to hack into the checkpoint terminal before opening up the gate.

Beyond the gate, it looked like a tomb. I counted at least two dozen skeletons. They were lying on the ground, leaning against the green and light gray metallic walls, or occasionally sitting in a chair. To my right was a vehicle depot, and just under a slightly open garage door I could see what looked like a truck. On my left were two rooms, the vehicle maintenance bay and a robot lift for bringing them from the level below. In front of me was a signal sliding door. I went for that, bringing most of the squad with me while those that were left stayed behind to guard the bunker entrance and make sure none of the bunker defences were reactivated.

After opening the door, I lead the squad down the hall towards the door marked 'cafeteria'. Before I go in though, I send two members to quickly check two corridors going left and right marked refueling station and vertibird bay respectfully. After a couple minutes, they rejoin us, along with the guards we had left on the surface, who had been recalled to secure the bunker. One of them walks up to me and says "Sir, Alice just reported in. She's on her way to the bunker and should be with us within the next few minutes."

After thinking for a moment, I say "Alright, good job soldier." before turning back around and entering the cafeteria, flanked by Roy and another close quarters militia member.

If the entrance area had been a tomb, then this was a massacre. There were well over a hundred or so skeletons that littered the floors of the cafeteria and nearby kitchen. I look at all of the bones and worn uniforms before turning my attention back to the squad. "Alright, let's clear out the rest of this floor. Roy and Richard's teams are to scout out the area ahead of us and secure a safe path to the elevator. John, your team is going to check out the remainder of the cafeteria, as well as the kitchens and food storage, let's move!"

Five minutes later, we had the first floor cleared and by now Alice had arrived, along with George, Elza, and a slightly limping Jordan. "Got to admit, didn't think you'd find the bunker so soon." George said, impressed. "Still can't believe this was here the whole time." Elza mumbled, looking around. Jordan remained silent, simply staring in awe.

"Well I'm going to need you guys to stay on this level for now. The other two levels still haven't been checked yet." John said. "Elza looked slightly disappointed before saying "Alright". George and Jordan just nodded.

I gathered up everyone except for the two people who would stay and guard the top level. "Alright everyone, here's the plan. Once we get down there, we're gonna split up. Roy, you're team will go to the elevator down to the third floor and restart the main generator because I don't think the back-up power will last much longer." The lights in the bunker then flickered for a moment before stopping, staying noticeably dimmer, as if to prove my point. "John, your team, along with me and Alice will get to the command center and secure it. Richard, I want your team to move down to the robot storage area and make sure none of the robots are reactivated when the main power comes back on. Any questions?" One of the militia members from Roy's team raises his hand. "Sir, what if we encounter any online defences, like turrets and robots?" "If you do encounter anything like that, I want you to neutralize it, alright?" I respond. He quickly nods, letting silence take over for a moment before I say "Alright, let's go secure ourselves a bunker!"

I jog into the elevator, followed by everyone else. As the door closes and the elevator starts descending, I wondered if bad will happen soon. 'This has been too easy.' I thought. 'Either this bunker isn't very well defended, all of its defences are offline like the colonel said, or we haven't gotten to it yet.' Just then the elevator stopped, and the doors started to open. "Get ready!" Richard yelled as he aimed his sniper rifle at the door. Everyone else aimed their weapons at the door, ready to shoot. In a way, it's like we were expecting an army of robots to come at us, firing bullets and lasers into our small squad. Even so, we all hoped that wouldn't be the case, and the hallway would be clear.

What we weren't expecting was a mister gutsy to be floating just down the hall, cleaning the walls as it floated along. After a moment, the Gutsy noticed us in the elevator and said "Ah good, you're finally here. If you'll follow me, I'll take you to the commander." After some confused looks, we decided to follow the Gutsy.

As we walked the short distance to the command center, I looked around. The walls and floors here still had decay on them, but they seemed to be a bit more cleaner than the level above. I also noticed a few more robots as we walked. Most of them were Gutsy's cleaning the walls and floors and repairing what little damage there seemed to be, but one of them was also a protectron on guard. At this point I also noticed that the turrets here were offline, which confused me. Wouldn't they have activated them to provide more defence. Then again, they could probably just flip a switch or issue a command and have them online.

After another few moments of walking, we reached the door to the control center. Guarding it's entrances were two robots whose models I was unfamiliar with. They were a feminine human shaped robot, and about as tall as one. They were painted military green, and had an oddly shaped head with what looked like a red laser crystal at the center.

"Impossible." I turn around and see that it was Richard who had said this, looking at the two robots. "How are assaultrons here." After giving him a confused look, he calmed down a little and explained "Assaultrons had been developed and put into the old U.S military a year or two before the nukes fell. However, they saw little frontline combat and weren't very common. I thought that they were only in the commonwealth back in Boston and up in Alaska." "Well what if Washington was a place where they were sent in case of a chinese invasion?" I responded. "Doubt it, I know for sure there aren't any in California or the mojave, and a friend of mine hasn't seen any in D.C."

Before either of us could continue, a voice sounded from the now open door to the control center. "That would be because of Governor Faller." Looking back at the door, I saw another assaultron talking to us, except it was slightly different. The body looked slightly more masculine, and the robot itself was painted a light gray. I also noticed that instead of claws like the other two, this one had 5 fingered robotic hands.

"Thank you for bringing our guests here G-35, please return to your previous assignment." The assaultron then said to the Mr. Gutsy that brought as here. "Yes sir!" The Gutsy exclaimed before floating back down the hall. "Follow me." The assaultron told us before walking across from the command center room, opening one of two doors marked 'debriefing room'. In the room was about two dozen chairs, and in front of them was a small pedestal with a large T.V screen behind it. "Take a seat, this will likely be a while." Said the assaultron, motioning towards the chairs. We all sat down as the assaultron walked up to the pedestal, standing behind it while waiting for us to finish sitting down.

"Now that we're ready, why don't I explain who I am before we begin. My unit name is U-12, and I was assigned to this bunker six months before we were hit by the nukes and chemical weapons." U-12 then pointed at Richard "While your right about there being few assaultrons and their locations in the U.S, governor Faller had managed to get his hands on a couple of battalions worth of them. They were spread throughout the N.W commonwealth, and a company of them were stationed here in Republic."

Due to power issues, everything in the bunker was shut down about three years after the nukes fell, and we only got recently reactivated thanks to you turning on the emergency power. Speaking of which, do you mind if some of you can quickly go down to the reactor and turn it on. Our programming prevents us from going down onto the third level."

"Can one of you go down there and turn it on?" I asked, looking at the squad. After a bit of silence, John got up and said "I'll go if one of the robots can show me how to do it."

U-12 just nodded and said "Alright, I'll have a couple a gutsys down there ready to tell me where it is and how to turn the power on." At this, John got up and walked out the door.

""Thank you, so do you have any questions?" We were silent for a moment before I spoke up. "Well, what happens now?" U-12 chuckles at this and says "Well, unless the U.S government survived, which I doubt they did, then your group is in charge of the bunker, and I'll happily assist you in it's operation." This surprises us, since we had a feeling that the bunker wouldn't have been given up this easily. "Well the old government is dead, unless you add those corrupt Enclave, so I suppose we should bring this bunker back into operational status." At this the lights got brighter, and an automated voice somewhere nearby said 'Main Power is now Online'.

As we wondered what to do next, U-12 then surprised us. "If you don't mind, I got a question for you." After saying we don't mind, he then asked us what he wanted to ask. "How did you find this bunker, it wasn't known to the public, and everyone died down here when the chemical weapons hit."

"Well we had found the body of an officer near the hospital. Apparently, the man had managed to seal himself in a room down here, although he still got infected by the chemical weapon. Once it dissipated, he left to go to the hospital, believing that there might have been something there to help him. We heard all of this on a holotape that the guy prerecorded before leaving."

After a moment of silence, the assaultron spoke up. "Well alright then, thanks for answering the question. I guess we'll head to the command center now. It's good to know that Jason died fighting that damn chemical." At this we were confused. We hadn't said his name. U-12 saw our looks and chuckled, saying "I was his personal assistant, and helped him through his four years of being a commanding officer in the army."

At this, we remained silent as we walked to the command center, ready to bring the bunker back to it's former glory.


	15. Fallout: Washington Chapter 13

Chapter 13

March 12, 2292

Location: Republic

We went into the command center after John returned and everyone on the floor above us was notified of what's happened so far. To say that I awed when we entered was an understatement. The entrance was located on a slight rise above the rest of the room, with stairs on both sides leading down. In the center of the room was a giant table, which turned out to be a holographic emitter, able to display maps, information, and talk to others who had a similar setup. At the front of the room were 2 rows of computer and terminal stations, with an occasional robot working at one. On the wall itself were several computer screens. There were more computer stations along the sides of the room as well.

When the whole group entered, U-12 turned to us and started speaking. "As you've already figured out, this is the control center. It's where the bunker and town are monitored and maintained, as well as a communications and control hub for all operations coming from here and a link to the rest of the WARF bunker system."

As he said this, a thought popped into my mind and made me freeze momentarily, before interrupting U-12. "Wait U-12, is the bunker able to see the status of the other bunkers?" U-12 looked at me for a second and then responded "Yes it is, why do you ask?"

I immediately went into commander mode, ordering U-12 to bring up the list of WART bunkers and their status. "I don't see why you're worried Adam." John said, looking at me curiously. "I just need to make sure of something, so bare with me." I quickly respond as the list came up on the holo-map:

WARF Bunker System:

Army Bunker 1:

Location: Northern Washington Cascades

Status: Online

Army Bunker 2

Location: Republic

Status: Online

Army Bunker 3

Location: Seattle

Status: Online

Army Bunker 4

Location: Yakima

Status: Offline

Air Force Bunker 1

Location: Spokane

Status: Offline

Air Force Bunker 2

Location: Southern Washington Cascades

Status: Online

Air Force Bunker 3

Location: Bellingham

Status: Offline

Naval/Marine Bunker 1

Location: Oak Harbor

Status: Offline

Naval/Marine Bunker 2

Location: Tacoma

Status: Offline

Naval/Marine Bunker 3

Location: West Port

Status: Online

Vancouver Operational Center

Location: Vancouver, British Columbia

Status: _Error_

Washington Armed Forces Command Center

Location: Central Washington Cascades

Status: Online

Washington National Guard Bunker

Location: Olympia

Status: Offline

Special Forces Bunker

Location: Fort Walla Walla

Status: Offline

Washington Army Surveillance Center

Location: [Redacted]

Status: _Error_

Washington Military Space Center

Location: Olympia

Status: Offline

'Looks like we're not the only ones' I thought as I turned to U-12. "Is there any way to make our bunker status offline while not actually turning the bunker back off?" U-12 seemed to think for a couple of seconds before responding "Yes I believe so, I'll get on it right away". He started ordering the various robots in the room to do different things to do this. Meanwhile, I turned to my friends and the militia to explain. "If we're able to see the other bunkers status, then they'll be able to see our own. Since there's some online, I'd rather not take the chance of a heavily armed group coming at us." As I finished, I saw that they understood, either nodding their heads, understanding the importance of what I had done, or had faces of surprise still plastered onto their faces.

As soon as I finished talking to them, U-12 came back over and started talking again. "Alright, I've gone ahead and removed all outside links to the base, so now it will appear as offline." Nodding, I respond "Well I hope it works, let's go over the bunker and what we got here." With a nod, U-12 lead us over to the holo map.

 **Meanwhile**

"Yo boss, I got something!" At this I turned around, looking for the source of the yell. I quickly identified it as one of the engineers doing maintenance on a terminal station. I walk over, and giving the man a slight glare, I say "It better be important.". The engineer looks nervous for a moment, before clearing his throat and saying "I was working on the terminal here, and the status for one of the offline bunkers just changed." I notice what he was saying, seeing the 'online' status for the army bunker in Republic. As I make this observation, the engineer continues talking "I'm not too sure whether it happened due to me working on the terminal or if it's actually happened, so I'm thinking about restarting the terminal quickly, I just figured that I should ask for permission before doing so.". Seeing that the man was done, I respond with a "do it" and watch quietly for the next few minutes as the terminal is rebooted, and soon brings back the bunker list.

I immediately look for the Republic bunker, and once I see it, I almost let out a sigh in relief. The bunker was back to it's 'offline' status. I then look down at the engineer, who starts looking a bit sheepish and guilty. "Looks like it was just a glitch, sorry about that sir."

After staring at him for a moment, I say "Don't let it happen again." before walking away, faintly hearing a rushed "Yes, sir!" from the man. 'Glad it was just a glitch' I thought in relief. 'I got too much to deal with at the moment to be focused on a group of wastelander scum finding one of the bunkers.'

 **Now back to our regularly scheduled program!**

"Wow, just wow." Chris said as he looked at all the bunker had. While most of the food supplies had spoiled by now, there was still about a year's worth remaining. There was around a thousand stimpacks, hundreds of 'common' medical drugs or liquids, like MedX, RadX, and Radaway. There were also thousands of simpler things, like disinfectant and gauze. There was even a few autodocs, a small preservation field containing drugs and antibiotics that would've been long expired by now, and a MRI machine.

In the robot storage area was 240 protectrons, 150 Mr. Gutsies, 120 Eyebots, 100 assaultrons, and 20 sentry bots. There were also a dozen small UAVs that came with small launch and field control kits for them. They were even armed with a small machine gun!

In the vehicle depot, there was 40 motorcycles, 40 ATVs, 25 Humvees, 20 buggies, 15 troop and supply transport trucks, 5 heavy vehicle transport trucks, 12 m4 Bradley IFVs, 8 M1128 Strykers, and 5 renovated M60 Patton tanks. In a storage area by the depot were 14 M224 60mm mortars and 6 M777 155mm howitzers, along with ammo for both them and the gun-carrying vehicles. What surprised me the most about this however was the 3 vertibirds.

One of them was an attack variant, armed with a gatling laser turret on the front of the bottom, dual 12-rocket pods on the sides of the vertibird, and m2 browning machine guns in the doors. It was also able to hold 4 passengers. The other two were a transport/bomber type, armed with 4 front-facing m2 machine guns, and 2 miniguns on the open sides that the passengers could use. There was also a small bomb rack on the bottom that could hold either 4 mini-nukes or 2 conventional bombs. It was able to hold ten passengers. The vertibirds and remaining vehicles either used fusion cores or small microfusion cells, which was good considering all of the gasoline had gone bad.

Down in the armory, there were about 800 sets of U.S Combat armor, along with kevlar vests and backpacks. There were hundreds of m4 carbines, combat rifles, combat shotguns, and pistols. There was also around a hundred or so laser rifles, 40 scatter laser rifles (aka laser shotguns) and 50 laser pistols, along with 5 plasma guns. There were 50 sniper rifles and a dozen anti-material rifles, along with 45 miniguns, 15 gatling lasers, 120 Mk.4 Machine gun turrets, 60 grenade launchers, 25 conventional missile launchers, 15 Stinger anti-aircraft launchers, 20 Javelin anti-tank launchers, and 12 T.O.W guided anti-tank missile launcher emplacements, along with ammo for all of the weaponry for a miniature war.

Finally, there was the heavy duty armor. Power armor to be precise. There was 35 sets of T-45d and 15 T-51b armor, along with 10 spare power armor frames.

"That's the basic inventory of the bunker" U-12 said, looking at me. "There's still the storage area, where both shipments passing through and some extra things are kept." He had spent the last 30 minutes going over the different systems of the bunker, it's capacity, and everything else about it, including it's ability to recharge fusion cores by using the main generator. He had just now finished and was looking at us for a response.

"Well…" I said, breaking the silence, "our first order of business is to fully secure the bunker and the RobCo office complex above, along with the rest of the town." I turn to Richard "Richard, I want you to garrison the militia in the complex, only you and my friends are going to have access to the bunker though, so make sure the militia stay up there. U-12, I want 15 turrets, 10 protectrons, and 6 Mr. Gutsies to help guard it, along with a similar amount at the hospital and up to 30 Gutsies and 5 sentry bots on patrol throughout the town."

After seeing them nod, I turn to to Alice and Dusk "I want you two to stay in the bunker to organize things, find out what else we got, and in general operate the bunker and Republic area." I then look at John, saying "John, I want you to get trained up in one of the power armor suits, we need to have someone ready with one in case we need it. I want the rest of you to return to the hospital with me in the meantime"

As I finish up, I notice something. Everyone in the room had a sense of accomplishment, pride, duty, and hope. Even U-12 somehow showed this. We had successes in the task of getting the bunker secure, and in doing so also gained some important information and an ally. We now felt that we could accomplish greatness. Enough to make a change to the wasteland. Enough, to start a new nation. 'We'll just have to see' I thought as I left the control room.

 **Meanwhile**

 **(yet again)**

The door to the Elder's quarters opened as a star paladin entered the room, wearing brotherhood of steel combat armor. "You wanted to see me sir?" The paladin asked as he stood at attention, looking at the room's owner. "First off, you can go ahead and cut the formal crap, we're friends after all, Stan." Paladin Stan relaxed slightly as the elder continued "Now, let's talk. Who do you see out there."

Stan looked a bit startled before he responded "Well, besides us in the brotherhood, there's mostly wastelanders and scavengers, along with raiders, slavers, pirates, hostile mutants, and the Enclave.".

The elder waited a moment before saying "Of those people, how many support us and how many are against us?" "Well, only a few out there are actually with us, and a decent amount are neutral, or at least won't shoot at us without provocation. The rest of them though, they're after us." Stan said, wondering where this was going.

"Stan, I'm not going to lie to you, we're losing." Before stan could object or say otherwise, the elder held up his hand, letting Stan know that he has more, before continuing "We may be gaining ground now, but we only have so many men here. While we have the momentum, as well as sufficient ammo and spare parts **for now** , I want to be able to take advantage of it, and that means more allies."

After waiting a moment to see if there was any more, Stan asked "Why allies? Why not resources to consolidate our position?" The elder grinned as he said "Allies can be one of the most important things in a conflict. They can be an extra source for supplies, additional soldiers to help hold the line or attack the enemy. They can be a moral gain or a point to fall back to. They can be an extra voice in a plan or a gun protecting you from the rear. They can be an advantage, Stan. While sometimes unpredictable, they can be the greatest asset in the battlefield, and not just that either. You know the stories of the Chosen one and his son, of the Sole survivor and the lone wanderer and the Courier. Those people, were allies to those factions that they helped, and didn't join anyway."

The Elder shakes his head quickly and continues "The point is, we need help if we're to win this war, or even survive. So that's why I'm sending you on a mission to get it." The Elder then pulls out a well detailed map of Washington and Oregon. The NCR down south aren't with us, the north is a mystery, and the entire of the west has made their position known, so we need to go to the place where it's possible."

"The east, sir?"

"Yes! That's the only place available. Besides, we haven't sent a technology recovery or scouting team there in a while, so it's only more proof that we need to send a team there anyway."

"So here's how we'll do it, you and about a dozen fellow brotherhood members will be escorted by fellow brotherhood and resistance members down to the NCR border. From there, you'll pose as merchants heading east, through the hood valley crossing, and up to the border. From there, you're free to do anything you see fit. I'd like you to be back within the year though, and to also visit these places while you're there." He finished, handing Stan a piece of paper with a list of different towns."

Stan looked over the list for a moment before responding "Alright sir, but I just have a question before I'm ready. I know about all these different towns, the Tri-Cities, New Coulee, Royal, and so on, from reports and the news stations, but I've never heard of Republic before."

The elder looked at Stan with mild surprise and amusement before answering his question "From what our limited sources in the east have gathered, we're not even completely sure that a town or village is even there. But from what we do know, it is inhabited, and not by raiders either. Earlier today, one of our scribes noticed that the bunker in Republic temporarily went online before going back offline. While it could've been a glitch, I think that the people in Republic found the bunker there, and had enough knowledge and expertise to turn it off before another faction like the Enclave caught on. Although who knows, maybe they did. So, are you up for the mission, Stan?"

"Yes, sir!" Stan immediately responded, putting his arm up in a salute. The elder laughed quietly as he patted Stan's shoulder "Good, you're going to be moving out in 3 days, so choose your team and supplies before getting some rest, god knows you're going to need it. I'll see you soon."

'I hope this gamble pays off before it is too late, because if it doesn't' the elder thought as Stan walks out of the room. 'Then the whole wasteland will pay'.


	16. Fallout: Washington Chapter 14

Chapter 14

March 15, 2292

Location: Republic

"Hey guys, it's starting!" Alice started, breaking me and Dusk from our thoughts as we got up from the chairs we were sitting in and jogged across the room to where Alice was sitting, tuning in the radios she had to the correct frequency. I had been down here with the two girls for the past 20 minutes, waiting for the 'Pacific North-West Station' to start broadcasting. Before this, me and Chris had just finished a trade deal with the followers, trading two of the three spare autodocs we had found in the bunker's storage in exchange for 3 forklifts and most of the construction materials that they had. While we were there, we had also formed a mutual defence treaty, in case either of us got attacked.

Standing next to Alice, I look at the various radios she had, hearing a small, yet catchy intro for about 10 seconds, which was then replaced by a voice.

" _Good morning to the Pacific Northwest. This is K.O speaking, bringing you your weekly coverage of all of the big things happening in the Pacific northwest!_

 _So to start with, it has been confirmed that the slavers who attacked Malo were from Spokania. That, along with reports of their patrols being seen as far as Walla Walla and the outskirts of New Coulee, means that they're expanding their operations, which is not good at all. So a word of advice for those of you who think you live far enough away from them to not be affected by them, well you better think twice and prepare just in case._

 _Also, one more thing before I drop this subject. The slavers there have put up a bounty for some vault dwellers, 1,500 caps for each one I've heard. Don't do it. Don't let these slavers use you as pawns. Sorry if it sounds like I'm quoting James here, but I still mean it. Just doing it will help them ruin further lives and destroy settlements._

 _Speaking of settlements, more have been popping up in the eastern Washington state, particularly in the north and south. Most of these new settlers are refugees, whether they're escaping from the NCR, slavers, whatever is up north in Canada, the small war over near the Cascades between the locals and the enclave, or a few who have managed to escape from the west."_

Thinking about it, I realised that in a way, we fit into this category too, since we were driven out of the vault by the slavers. As I thought about this, K.O continued on with his news broadcast

" _Now on to that war itself. While initially being pushed back, the local super mutants are now holding the Enclave back and have even recaptured Wenatchee, with help from the newly assembled Royal-Coulee militia. However, it's now become a standstill, as artillery in the Enclave stronghold of Ellensburg is keeping the mutant/militia coalition from advancing further, James and I will keep you informed on the conflict in latter broadcasts._

 _On another note, tensions have been mounting in the Tri-cities region, as the New Kennewick assembly accuses the Richland government of sabotage and attempts to infiltrate the city. Furthermore, they claim that they've hired groups of mercenaries and raiders to attack Kennewick caravans. Richland's governor, Ronald Nix, denies this, saying that these claims were false, and that if these accusations continue, then it could lead to further tensions and even conflict. The Pasco council and Tri-Cities Enterprises refused to comment on the situation._

 _Now on to the west. As I've told you before, it's in a constant state of war between the brotherhood of steel, along with it's allies, fighting against the Enclave. For much of the war, it's just been at a stalemate, with each side either bogged down or making very small victories. However, that changed recently as the brotherhood of steel went on the offensive within the past week, pushing the Enclave out of the downtown Seattle area, and breaking their naval siege on the Seattle port and Whidbey island, in coordination with the resistance to the south and the Puget nation in the sea._

 _While exact losses are unknown, it is speculated by Elder Stan that Enclave casualties could very well be in the hundreds, and that's not including their naval losses either, where they lost most of their fleet, which was originally made up of numerous repurposed fishing boats, some old national guard patrol craft, and a few yachts, most of which is now either at the bottom of the Puget sound sea floor or in the hands of the brotherhood-resistance-Puget coalition._

 _To finish up my report is news from down south in the now NCR Oregon. While normally there would be a sort of uneasy peace whenever a new region was annexed by the NCR, it's different down in Oregon today. Some of my sources down there are saying that there's a buildup of military troops, vehicles, and supplies near major routes leading into Washington. While I'm not a major strategist, it's pretty easy to tell that they're not content with Oregon. I'm not sure when they're going to push in, but it looks like they're bringing out everything they have. Exact numbers or dates aren't confirmed, but from what it looks like, they'll move out within a few months, and their relative strength hasn't been this high since the Mojave, and even then, there might be more this time._

 _Well that's all I have for now folks, this is K.O signing out, stay safe people."_

The radio then cut out into static, which was quickly stopped when Alice turned off the radio. We stood there for a few moments in shocked silence at all the news, before something unexpected ended it.

"FIFTEEN HUNDRED CAPS! ARE YOU KIDDING ME! I'M AT LEAST WORTH TWO THOUSAND! WHAT A LOAD OF BULL-" the voice was then muted as a door slam could be heard a couple levels up. After looking at each other for a moment, Dusk started giggling, which soon spread to me and Alice, and before we knew what happened we were having the biggest laugh we've ever had since a prank gone wrong in the vault a few months ago.

After a few minutes, we had finally gained back enough control to start talking normally. "Well, I wasn't expecting that." Alice said first, trying to hold down some giggling. "I think that was John too." Dusk added, getting up from the ground where she had collapsed when she was laughing. "Definitely John" I said as I got the remaining laughter down before going back to a more serious mode. "Now, we've learned a lot of things from that broadcast, like that apparently we're worth quite a bit of money and that Washington is on the brink of total war...". Saying this got both of their full attentions, stopping what little laughter there was left and bringing on a more serious look. "This means that we're going to have to be more careful, which I think we should start off by fully securing the area around Republic and maybe wear something other than vault clothing from time to time." As I say this I start looking at my pipboy, looking at various status updates involving the robots and various projects. "Alice, I know that you already have a lot to do as it is, but can you come with me to prepare some of the robots for an expedition up north to the farms and Malo?" After seeing her nod, I start to get up, only to have one of my arms grabbed. Turning back, I see that it's Dusk who grabbed my arm, a look of worry on her face. "What are you doing Adam?" She asked, keeping her steel-like grip on my arm as I responded "We need to make sure that there's no threats nearby the town, we can't afford to be attacked right now, what if the slavers are nearby?"

After seeing her determination waver, a gently, yet sternly, remove my arm from her grip. "Don't worry, we'll be back." I say with a smile as I leave the room, following Alice.

 **30 minutes later**

I waited in the back of one of the army trucks we had gotten from the bunker and Richard and Alice finished preparing the militia and robots respectfully. We had with us four trucks and three humvees, with two of the trucks carrying soldiers and equipment and the other two carrying the 6 assaultrons and 10 protectrons that we were bringing. We were also bringing 8 mister Gutsies and a sentry bot, which were able to keep up with the vehicles. Along with the robots were the 14 men coming with us on the mission, 6 of which were new arrivals. Two of them were also survivors of the Malo attack, with the other four being part of a group of settlers from the north heading to New Coulee who decided to stay with us instead, bringing the total population of Republic to 69 people.

"Alright, let's go!" I heard Richard yell, followed by the engines of the vehicles start up. I looked at the 6 other militia members inside of the truck. Among them I saw Roy, holding his shotgun, and Alice at the very front, messing with the UAV that we were bringing. I also, knew that Richard and John were in the other militia-carrying truck, with John wearing his T-45d power armor. While he was barely trained with it, I hoped that by letting him wear it, he would not only get used to the suit faster, but also scare off anyone who would try to attack.

Looking back out, I saw the sentry bot and a humvee behind us, taking up the rear of the convoy and being flanked by two mister Gutsies. Beyond them I could see Republic in the increasing distance, seeing all of the activity that had been going on there. Between all of the available resources and the coordination from myself, Dusk, Alice, U-12, and George, we've been able to more properly secure the town. The Hospital and Rob Co complexes were fully secured and walled off, with work being made to wall off the warehouses at the edge of town already underway. We hopped to store our bulk supplies, like food and construction material, there. There were also plans to eventually wall off the entire town, but to do that would require a higher population and more materials for the wall. With the deal made with the followers, the amount of materials needed as dropped by a large percent, and the two forklifts will be valuable in making the wall.

I'm pulled from my thoughts by a voice on the radio inside the truck, telling us that a vehicle was approaching. 'Speaking of the followers, here they are now.' I thought with a smirk as I feel our truck momentarily slow down as it let's the followers vehicle pull into the convoy ahead of it. We had planned the mission to Malo with them, and they decided to bring some people with us to help with security and to treat any wounded.

I quickly looked out and see the vehicle. It was an old Red cross van, although I could see through the windows that it held a decent amount of medical equipment and personnel. Guarding the vehicle were two motorcycles, each with two people on, with the ones on the back hold aks. I gave them a little wave before getting back into the truck, sitting down and putting on my CTH helmet before getting myself into a comfortable position for the trip ahead.

 **1 hour later**

" _2 minutes until we arrive at Malo, suit up and get ready!"_ the radio blared, sparking a flurry of activity as people started checking their weapons and putting on armor. I quickly sat up and looked leaned out of the back of the truck, looking past it and the convoy to the town of Malo.

Or what was left of it.

Half of the buildings in the town were in ruins or rubble, with only a few of them looking like they were untouched. The walls surrounding the town had several breaches in them, and the only guard towers remaining looked like they could easily collapse. As we parked up next to an old red rocket gas station near the smashed open gate to the town, I saw several bodies lying in the street ahead. "Alright everyone, let's get moving. Alice, I want you and a couple of protectrons to go to the red rocket gas station and send up the UAV. Everyone else, on me!" I yelled into the truck, getting a bunch of 'yeahs!' and 'oorahs!' from them as they started to get onto the truck, each of them carrying either a combat shotgun, m4 carbine, or laser rifle. As I and the others jogged to the other trucks, I could see some of the militia members loading off the robots, while others were standing around Richard and the lady who was leading the followers, called Sheila. She was also the follower women we had found at the farms when they were attacked.

"Alright everyone ready?" I asked, receiving nods and more 'yeahs' from everyone. "Let's go see what those slavers left behind." With that, I started jogging towards the gate, hearing the pounding footsteps of people behind me.

 **25 minutes later**

"So what have we found?" I asked Richard and Sheila, as we were sitting at a table inside of a former bar inside of the town. "Besides some raiders in one of the houses and an occasional bit of loot, nothing." Richard said, giving me a neutral look. "I can't say I'm surprised, considering that most of the population is either dead, enslaved, or with us." Sheila also added, looking at me with a slightly sorrowful face.

Before anything could be said however, the radios that Richard and I had on Squawked to life, letting us hear the panicked voice of Alice on the other end. " _Guys! We have a problem! The UAV picked up a lot vehicles coming toward us from the east. They look like the slaver vehicles we saw at the vault!"_ At this, all 3 of us jumped out, running outside of the bar. We saw that we weren't the only ones who heard the message, as we heard yelling from many guards scrambling toward the walls, assigning robots to the breaches, and bringing the vehicles in from outside. Richard then spoke into his radio, asking Alice about details involving the new threat. She replied almost immediately with a slightly calmer voice.

" _There's a giant bus, heavily armored and with what looked like machine gun turrets on the top. It looks like it's filled with people as well, probably about 30-40. There's also two old transport trucks, likely carrying more troops. Escorting them are three armored pickup trucks, each with a machine gun on the back. Finally, there's about a dozen motorcycles with them, each carrying two people. They're about 10 minutes away."_

After a quick moment of thinking, I take my radio and respond. "Alright Alice, I want you to move everything back inside the town, but try to keep watch on the slavers and give us any updates on them." After a quick 'yes' from her, I turn to Richard "Richard, I want you to get in contact with the bunker and the followers and let them both know what's happening. Also, I would like you to keep a direct connection with the bunker up." I tell him.

As I start to run toward one of the trucks to get extra ammo for the fight, I hear Richard yell "Alright, but what do you have planned?". I turn back to him and yell "I'll tell you when you get that radio connection up!" before running to the truck.

 **Author's note:**

Well, that's all. Also, if you have any questions, like what's canon or not in this fallout universe or what I've changed to fit with the story, then make sure to pm the questions. Also, I'll be eventually using these questions/answers in a future Q&A, so that everyone will know. Also, besides these questions, It's likely that I'm not gonna be doing any chapters within the next couple of weeks due to a combination of upcoming high school finals and other things I'm going to be working on. Well, I'll cya later, so stay determined folks!


	17. Fallout: Washington Chapter 15

Chapter 15

March 15, 2292

Location: Malo ruins

 **Forger's pov**

'Another great catch' I thought as I looked towards the back of the truck, seeing the dozens of new slaves we just caught from up north. Among them were a few guards, ready to shoot them if need be, although that wouldn't be likely. Most of them were in low spirits after their capture, and those who still had a fire in them were either being carefully watched or were wounded.

Scouts had found the settlement these people called home a couple of weeks ago just beyond the Canadian border, some place called Triton. When we got there and attacked, there was quite a fight. About a couple dozen or so of the settlers had been killed, along with 7 of my own slavers and a couple of motorcycles when one of the bastards got a lucky shot off with a missile. These losses were worth it however, since we got 37 new slaves, along with food, water, some meds and ammo, and even a few laser guns. The missile launcher from before was too badly damaged however, but oh well, we had a decent amount of those anyway.

After staring at them in a mixture of pride and greed for a few minutes, I turned around and went back up to the front of the bus. Dodging a ladder that went up to one of the machine guns on the roof of the bus, I walked up to the driver, Thomas. "Anything unusual?" I asked him curiously. While we were one of the most powerful groups in the entire Pacific Northwest region, there was still the chance that there could be a heavily armed group nearby.

"One of the scouts just reported in that they dealt with a pack of mole rats up the road, but besides that there's nothing boss. Home base reports nothing out of the ordinary either."

After thinking about it for a moment and taking note of the late time, I told Thomas to tell home base that they're going to spend the night at Malo before returning home. After doing this, I decided to walk to one of the few seats that were safely away from the slaves to catch a nap.

 **7 minutes later**

"Boss! Wake up!"

At hearing this, I groaned, slowly opening my eyes and looking for who called for me with a vengeance. I've been waken up from sleep enough times before to know roughly how much sleep I got, and I could tell I barely got any. However, these thoughts went away as one of the slave guards rushed into my vision, worry and concern in his face. "Boss, we just arrived at Malo. It's occupied."

I immediately jumped up at hearing this, glaring at the man as I demanded at what he meant. After taking a couple of steps back, he pointed out the window behind me. Turning around, I could immediately see why he was worried. Malo's damaged wall laid ahead of us, with at least a dozen people and robots peeking over the walls or guarding the two breaches, armed to the teeth with weaponry. The breaches themselves were also blocked off, with one being blocked by a sentry bot and the other by a humvee with a manned machine gun.

'How the hell are we gonna get out of this in one piece.' I thought as I stared at them. I was just about ready to order a retreat, when I heard a loud voice from the wall, being amplified by a bullhorn.

 **Adam's pov**

"Attention slavers, you have one minute to surrender all of your weapons and slaves, otherwise we'll have to open fire." Richard said, his voice being ten times louder due to the bullhorn. On insistence from Sheila, we had decided to try this first before fighting, in case they listen. This had only been reinforced by the fact that Alice saw that most of the people in the bus were slaves. 'Well clearly they aren't gonna take the offer.' I thought as I watched them. While most of them looked quite nervous, it didn't look like they would easily surrender.

I sighed as the slavers had fifteen seconds left. After a discussion between me, Richard, and U-12 on the radio, we had decided to bring up more firepower. Due to the very short amount of time we had, they were flown in by the two transport vertibirds, which were piloted by assaultrons. We were especially concerned since they weren't meant for complex things such as piloting a vertibird, and while they still shouldn't be used, they were still alright for basic flights.

'I just hope we won't have to use the artillery.' I think as I look back into town at the two mortars manned by militiamen. It had been part of the equipment we had brought in on the vertibirds, but they wouldn't be used yet, since we couldn't afford to hit the slaves with the blast or shrapnel.

"Start it." I told Richard as I continued to look at the slavers. As Richard issued the command into his radio, I saw one of the slavers in the bus staring at me with a fierce look in his eyes. That, combined with the impressive equipment he had on him and the air of authority around him suggested that he was the slaver leader. 'Not for much longer.' I thought as I saw a small ripple in the air to the left of the bus, quickly making it's way onto the bus itself.

 **Forger's pov**

'Surrender or be shot, really?' I thought to myself as I watched the people in Malo, who were currently either staring at us or talking to each other. After a little bit of observation, I decided to give the order to attack first. "Prepare to open fi-!" I was cut off as an object hit my back from behind, sending me against the wall of the bus. I managed to look back and caught sight of a humanoid robot as it's stealth field dissipated. Off to the sides, I could see my men being attacked by more of these robots, but instead of restraining them like me, they simply cut them down. Before being knocked out, I saw two of them starting to climb up the ladders to the gun posts up top just as the bus started moving.

 **Adam's pov**

"It worked!" John exclaimed as we saw the bus starting to speed away from the main slaver group, with fighting both inside of and on top of the bus taking place. Before the other slavers could piece together what happened, I gave the order to open fire.

All of a sudden, bullets and lasers started flying towards the slavers, hitting those most of the ones who weren't smart enough to get to cover. The slavers soon started firing back at us, although in few numbers. As I fired at them, I saw one of them climbing into the back of one of the pickup trucks, hoping to get to it's machine gun. Before I could fire or he could get to it however, an explosion landed right next to the truck, causing its fusion cell to go off and the whole thing erupting in an explosion, taking out not only the guy who was going for the gun but also a few others who were nearby.

'That must've been the mortar' I thought, which was immediately answered by a second mortar round landing on them, hitting another couple of them.

After a couple more minutes of shooting and explosions, the battle ended. As soon as Alice reported that the UAV wasn't picking up any movement and few remaining heat signatures from live bodies, I ordered that the robots we had stationed here to secure the battle area. After doing so, I looked as the bus, which had been parked away from the fighting, and started walking toward it, motioning for Richard to follow me.

I was soon at the bus, and looking inside I could see that there was quite a fight. About half a dozen slavers were dead on the ground, with another three unconscious. 'Glad we had these' I thought, looking at the dominators. They were a modified version of the assaultron, equipped with two swords and a stealth generator. We only had seven of these, but they've more than proven themselves to be useful.

Looking into the back of the bus, I could see all of the slaves looking at me with mixed emotions. There was fear, curiosity, caution, and hope among their faces. Deciding to talk to them before letting them make assumptions, I walk up towards them until I'm right in front of the first row, which is when I start my small speech.

"Hello everyone. My name is Adam and I'm the leader of the group that just took out these slavers. Now, we won't be forcing you to become our slaves or anything like that. Instead, I'll give you a choice. You can either join us, and help us fight against these slavers and others like them, or we can return you back to your settlement or a nearby one. I'll have my soldiers unlock you from your chains and give you half an hour to decide, just make sure to not grab any weapons or threaten or do anything else bad, and you'll be good, any questions?"

After looking at them for a few moments, I gave the soldiers who came with us the task of unlocking their chains and guarding them with the dominators. I then decided that I wasn't needed here anymore, so Richard and I left the bus and went back to where the battle took place. As I approached, I could already see that my soldiers were busy. Our three humvees had been brought out and formed into a rough semicircle around the battle site. The robots were with those humvees, guarding the perimeter while the soldiers went over the bodies and wreckage of the battle.

I caught sight of Sheila and quickly jogged over to her, asking for an update on the aftermath of the battle. "We only suffered one wounded thankfully, although I can't say the same for the slavers." She reports, looking at the mangled bodies of them for a second before looking back at us and continuing with her report. "We're still counting, but there's at least two dozen dead slavers and another four wounded, who have been taken into custody. After a bit of looking, me and John think that along with the bus, two of the motorcycles and one of the transport trucks can be reused, and most of the other vehicles have some part that can be salvaged. There's also a bunch of lower grade guns, ammo, food, and meds that we've salvaged as well."

After thinking over this for a second, I told her that she did a good job and I gave her a break after she sent some of her people up to the bus.

 **25 minutes later**

"Alright everyone, let's load up and head back home!" John shouted as everyone started final preparations to leave Malo. After talking with Sheila, I had radioed back to the bunker and follower's base at the school to let them know the results of the battle. To bring everything back, another three trucks were driven over, two from the bunker and one from the followers for their share of the loot.

As I start walking towards one of the trucks, I see John come towards me. "Hey John, how's the armor?" I ask him when he arrives. "Pretty good" He responds, moving his armor covered arms for a moment before saying something else. "By the way, I just got back from the bus. All of the slaves want to come with us back to Republic."

To say this surprised me was an understatement. I had thought that at least a couple would want to go somewhere else. 'Well, I guess since we're the ones that saved them and have all of this weaponry and equipment, it sorta makes sense.' I thought as I thanked John for the report and start heading towards the truck, ready to go home.


	18. Fallout: Washington Chapter 16

Chapter 16

April 2, 2292

Location: Republic

 _*Beep beep*_

"Uhh, five more minutes."

 _*Beep beep*_

…

 _*Beep beep bee-*_

"Okay okay! I'm getting up!" I mumbled as I turned off the annoying alarm clock, getting out of the old hospital bed that I had claimed as my own. After sitting on the bed for a couple of minutes, I looked around the room briefly before locating my dresser and making my way to it. After getting dressed in a plain shirt and some camo pants, I left my room and went down to the meeting room.

As I entered, I saw that almost everyone who was attending was there. On one side of the table sat Alex, Dusk, Alice, Richard and George. On the other side was U-12, Sheila, George, and Trent, who was the leader of the freed slaves. I soon went to the seat at the head of the table, and a few moments later John came into the room. The meeting was started immediately as I addressed everyone.

"Alright everyone, let's get this meeting started. First though, I want the reports we got." At that, several people handed me reports on various things that they've been monitoring or working on. This was to keep a current documentation of what we had, what we were doing, and other important things.

Our food supplies would last us about four years at this current rate, although it was expected to drop as more people arrived. It helped that most of the farmers who were with us had started planting their crops, which were mostly potatoes, corn, wheat, carrots, beans, and assorted fruits. The water supply was good considering the complex water purification system set up in the bunker, along with a few spare smaller water purification devices. We were already getting water from the water table and the nearby granite creek. There were also plans to build pumps at the Sanpoil river to the east and the Curlew lake to the north. Medical and ammo supplies were also in good condition.

Building supplies were fluctuating as scavenging teams tried to keep up with the supplies needed for the wall. The plan was to basically surround the town in a nine foot high concrete wall with barbed wire at the top and front with gun turrets a little farther out. At 60 yard intervals would be watchtowers, each having one or two sentries, along with either a missile/grenade launcher, a high power sniper rifle, or a machine gun. There would also be a spotlight turret on the top of each one too. On each of the main roads would be a double gate system, with metal gates and more guards. So far, about 78% of the wall was complete, along with most of the watchtowers and two of the three gates. It was expected that it would all be complete within another week.

The population of Republic had now reached 238 people, among them 92 former slaves. After the battle of Malo had happened, we had questioned the slavers we captured and learned that their base in the region was in Kettle falls, a town about 32 miles to the east of Republic. It was also one of the towns we passed through after we left the vault. The next day, Richard had led an assault on Kettle falls, releasing about 81 slaves and killing about 24 slavers, capturing most of their vehicles and equipment intact. A decent amount chose to join us, while the remainder either stayed to rebuild Kettle falls, left to find their home settlement, or went to New Coulee or the Tri-cities.

Over the past couple of weeks, John and Richard had led various assaults on nearby raider hideouts and bases, cleaning them out so that both the town and other people could be safer. In doing so, we gained allies all around us. Besides Kettle falls and Fort Republic, which is what the follower's have decided to call their school base, we've made allies with four major settlements. 'The ferry', which is located at Ferry County airfield, 'New Curlew' at the northern edge of Curlew lake, 'Junction' located to the west at pre-war Tonasket, and 'Long road' to the south. There was also a couple of dozen or so smaller settlements or farms that we've met with. Due to our increasing fame from both the radio broadcasts and wandering merchants and travellers, most of them are at least on friendly terms with us. Those who aren't just remained indifferent.

Seeing that all of the reports were in and out of the way, I decided to continue on with the meeting. "Alright, so let's first talk about organizing our government and forces, Trent, Richard, and U-12, take the lead."

After nodding to me, Trent sat up and started proposing his idea. "Alright, so my idea is that for now we use this council here as a sort of temporary government. Once we expand even more though, that's when we'll change. My idea is something similar to the old U.S government, except a bit different. Here, we'll have a high council and low council of representatives. The low council will be comprised of representatives from all settlements. Each one will get one person to represent their settlement, with that person being voted by the settlement's population. The high council will also be representatives, except this will be comprised of representatives from provinces of sorts. Each province will have several settlements, with a select one being its capital. Each province will also have one person to represent itself. That person will be voted in by the province's government, whose organization we'll discuss at a later date.

I think that the low council should be involved with matters that affect local regions or less important areas or matters. Meanwhile, the high council will deal with more crucial matters and ones that affect the entire nation I suppose. The country's leader will also have a personal advisor group who will advise the president on matters involving their own speciality, such as economy or environment. I also think that like the old government, there should be three branches: Judicial, Legislative, and Executive. Well, that's all I got for now, I'll let the others tell you there ideas."

Then Richard and U-12 stood up, with Richard doing the talking. "What me and U-12 think is that we should create three different groups: a military, a scavenging/scout group, and a guard. The guard's job will be both defenders of their settlement as well as a police for it and the surrounding area. The scavenging group's job will be to go into different areas and scavenge what there is, from food and water to building supplies and scraps. They'll also serve as a scouting unit both for general information and for military purposes.

Now the last group I want to create is the military, which will be divided into an army, air force, and rangers. The army for now will be divided into companies of 100 soldiers each, with two platoons per company and five squads per platoon. Once we gain more soldiers, we'll organize battalions of 500 soldiers, brigades of 2,500, and divisions of around 10,000. Since the air force is very small, we'll organize that at a latter date. Now for the rangers. I think that they should be a sort of small and mobile force, acting largely independent and capable of hit and run attacks, sort of like the desert rangers down in the Mojave and to an extent the NCR. We'll keep it small, but well equipped and trained, with their only rivals in our ranks being the other military special forces groups. As it is, we currently have 41 people in our military or training, including a couple of newly trained pilots from Ferry, with another 20 in the scavenging corps and 62 in the town guard. Well, that is all."

At this I sat back up. "Alright, unless someone has something else to say, I'll continue with the next item on our agenda. No one? Ok, so next we have foreign relations to talk about, which I'll lead."

I got up and pulled out a map, showing the different settlements and groups as I talked. "So we're already enemies with the Spokanian slavers, as well as other slavers and raiders in general. We're also allied with the followers and most nearby settlements. We'll just go over the major factions for now. So, I think that groups we should try to ally with is New Coulee and Royal, along with whoever is fighting against the slavers in the Spokane area. I don't have anyone who we should be hostile with, but I believe we should generally avoid the Enclave and NCR for now, but that's it for that, any questions?"

As soon as I finish, I see Richard's hand shoot up, a determined and curious expression on his face. "I understand why most of that should be done, but why avoid the NCR? We have some of the same beliefs and goals as them, and they could prove to be a valuable trading partner."

"Thank you for your opinion Richard. The reason why I want to avoid them for now is that they might see us as a threat to expansion and might try to annex or destroy us. If they specifically found out about the bunker and our abilities, they'll want to deal with us before we ever get the chance of becoming a large threat. Any more opinions?"

After a few no's and shakes of their heads, we move on to the other items on our list. While the rest of them weren't as big or concerning as the previous, they still needed to be dealt with. One of them was a couple of people who recently moved in suggesting that they start a local radio station, broadcasting news from Republic and welcoming people to join. After bit of debate, we decided that they would get the station within one month, so we made plans as to where to put it. In the end, we decided to put it on a hill just outside of town, which would also serve as a small army outpost.

The next issue was building usage. We already knew that the Robco compound would be used as the military HQ, and the old police office would serve as the town guard headquarters. After a bit of discussion and a lot of planning, we set aside different areas of the town for different purposes. The north, east, and south sides of town would serve as residential, while the center and western sides would be government and business. While the north area was currently being used by farmers, plans were put in place to eventually rebuild the farms outside of the town once the area is safer and more secure, leaving the space in the town left behind to build up the residential area there.

So far, while the center of town wasn't actively busy, some people had set up shop in the small stores surrounding the town center, making the place a sort of makeshift market. Meanwhile, it was decided that the hospital would serve two purposes. One was it's original purpose, dealing with patients and the medical needs of the local population. The other was the temporary housing of Republic's government, since there wasn't really any secure or good place to put it besides the city hall.

Finally, there was the punishment for the slavers. We had nine in captivity, including their commander at the battle of Malo. While they resisted at first, they soon cracked and told us all they knew. While we had dealt a serious blow to them, they still had the advantage. We estimated that they had around a couple thousand fighters, along with about a hundred motorcycles, a couple dozen more pickup trucks, and a few of those armored buses, along with some transport trucks as well. They even had some sort of makeshift tank available. This wasn't even including all of their slaver allies, which added up another thousand or so. So that was three thousand slavers against our 100 or so fighters. Even with all of our equipment, we were still greatly outnumbered. We'd have to wait a while longer before being able to fight them head on.

Going back to our captive slavers, many had wanted to just kill them outright, which we luckily stopped. Exile was not an option either since they could just walk back to their friends. So that left two options, execution or prison. While we were currently keeping them locked up at the guard HQ, it isn't set up for long term imprisonment, and keeping them as prisoners would just be a risk for us and a drain on our resources. So with doubt and some regret, we decided that they would have to be executed.

As we finished up with the meeting, I heard a _*beep*_ come from a radio. As soon as that happened, Alice paused for a moment before excusing herself from the room to talk with whoever called her. After asking if anyone had anything else to discuss, I decided it would be a good time to end the meeting.

"Well people, this has been a productive meeting, thanks for joining us and saying your opi-"

I was interrupted when Alice came back into the room, opening the door a little forcefully. "Adam, we got a situation down at West Fork."

After dismissing everyone except for U-12, Richard, John, and Trent, I asked Alice what was going on.

"A patrol from Long road saw a large firefight at West Fork just a few minutes ago. The battle's still raging, but what's concerning is who's in the battle. We know that one side is slavers, but on the other side are power armored people, about a dozen in total."

As soon as she mentioned power armor, by heart froze as I contemplated who it could be. There wouldn't be any reason for the Enclave or Tri-cities to come this far north, and as far as we were aware, and New Coulee only had a couple of suits available. So there was only one option as to who it could be.

"Alice, I want you to send a UAV up and to the battle. Once it's up, I want you to hand the controls to Chris and contact Long road to prepare a militia to help. Richard and John, I want you guys to get the military up and ready. I want every single available soldier ready to go on this. U-12, I want you to get the robots needed for this ready and make sure to scramble the vertibirds we got, they'll be needed. Once you do that, I want you to establish contact with the power armored people, we'll need heavy coordination in this fight. Let's go!"

As we rush back out to leave, John turns to me and asks "Who do you think it is?"

"Well, they got ample power armor and they're likely not the Enclave, so it must be the brotherhood."


	19. Fallout: Washington Chapter 17

Chapter 17

April 2, 2292

Location: West Fork

 **Stan's POV**

' _Of course it had to be slavers.'_

That was my thought as I dived for cover inside a rusted bus, firing through a window with my laser rifle. Our mission had gone pretty good as soon as we came into Washington a couple of weeks ago.. While many settlements ignored us or even shot at us, most had at least given us a chance. We had secured a small alliance with New Coulee, Royal, and the Tri-city Pasco. New Coulee had surprised me the most, since they had usually prefered to remain isolated from most of the wasteland. However, apparently a recent election had brought a new political party to power, ending some of the same corruption that had plagued the NCR and becoming more involved in the wasteland, most notably fighting the Enclave.

We had just left New Coulee a couple of days ago, heading north to where Republic was supposed to be. However, at some place called West Fork, we had encountered a party of 40 slavers. While they had superior numbers, this didn't worry me much. What did worry me though, was how geared they were. Most of them had ballistic weapons, like carbines, shotguns, and rifles. However, a dozen of them had laser weaponry. What made it worse was that a couple of them had missile launchers, and their leader was wearing a power armor frame covered by scrap junk, wielding an impressive minigun. While we had taken out about 20 of them, two of our own were already killed, and another 3 were wounded, although one was still able to fight. It got worse when enemy reinforcements arrived in the form of two pickup trucks and another dozen slavers.

I was just about to order a retreat when I heard someone call my name. Looking over, I saw one of our 3 scribes motion over to me, a radio in one hand and a laser pistol in the other. I made my way over to her, staying behind cover as I made my way out of the bus to where she was behind it.

"What is it Scribe Diana?"

"Sir, I just got a military transmission on the radio. It's for us."

"...Alright, patch the radio through to me." I ordered, watching her direct the signal from her field radio to my helmet interface, letting me talk to whoever was on the other side. "This is Star paladin Stan, who is am I speaking to?"

Static and silence remained for a moment longer before being replaced by a clear voice. "Star paladin, this is Adam Porcer, leader of the town of Republic and general of the Republican army, we heard that you could use our help."

"I'm not sure how much you can do mister Porcer. There's dozens of slavers here with a couple of machine gun wielding pickup trucks."

"We know, our UAV just got to the battle a couple of minutes ago."

Looking up through the sky for a minute, Stan noticed the UAV in the sky, keeping a safe distance from the fighting.

"Our reinforcements are going to be there in a few more minutes, just hold on Stan. Make sure to keep the connection up too."

That's how it stayed for the next few minutes as shots were exchanged between the slavers and us. The side of the bus got too shredded to use as cover so we had to pull the the troops in there out and join us on the far side, although that cover was rapidly diminishing as the slavers started lobbing grenades and missiles at the bus,chipping away at it. Salvation soon came however, as the radio in my helmet came back.

"Alright, we're here, Just keep your heads down and we'll take care of them." I was about to protest, but then I paused and looked at the state of my team. Half of us were dead or injured, and the rest showed various signs of fatigue. So hesitantly, I ordered everyone to get down and cease firing.

When we stopped shooting the slavers looked at each other in confusion and some in victory, although the latter disappeared as they heard an increasing *thumping* noise in the distance, growing louder and louder. Then out of nowhere, two vertibirds soared over the battlefield, each dropping two bombs onto the mass of slavers. The result explosion was deafening and blinding as most of the slaver troops were killed or scattered.

Stan noticed that one of the pickups had somehow survived, starting to be driven away by panicking slavers. Before it could get far however, a massive projectile slammed into the side of the truck, blowing up that side and breaking the truck itself into two flaming pieces of rubble. Looking over, I was shocked to see that it had been done by a tank, it's main cannon slightly smoking from the shot. It was accompanied by a second tank, along with a dozen or so heavily armed troops who, along with the vertibirds, strafed and cut down any remaining slavers.

One of the troops yelled "All clear!" into their radio before jogging over to us. "If you don't mind me asking, which one of you is Star paladin Stan?"

"That would be me." I responded, recognizing the voice as I walked over and shook their hand. "You must be Adam, thank you for helping us there."

"It's no problem Stan. Do you need any help, I can see that some of your people are badly wounded."

After thinking for a little bit, I decided to say yes and asked if we could go back to Republic as there was more to discuss. Adam agreed and had a couple of trucks come over. We loaded up the dead and wounded in one of them while the rest of us piled into the back of another. After a few minutes, we started to drive off with the rest of the vehicles at a decent pace, one of the vertibirds flying above us.

Just then, my radio came on again as Adam's voice echoed through my helmet. "Welcome to Republic, Star Paladin Stan.

 **The next day**

 **(Adam's POV)**

"Alright, let's start off by asking some questions." I announced as we sat down. We had agreed after the battle to hold a meeting the next day once he and the others got rested up and evaluated. Now it was that day, and now I was in the meeting room with Stan, along with his head scribe and second in command. With me was Richard, George, and Sheila.

Focusing on the present, I look over at Stan and start the questioning. "What are the brotherhood doing out here?" I knew that the Washington brotherhood stayed in the area west of the Cascades, so unless these guys are from a different chapter, they were up to something interesting.

"We came out here to look for help I suppose." This had caught me off guard. It was apparently rare that the brotherhood even accept outside help, so if Stan's bluntly saying it, then it must be bad. I break myself out of these thoughts as I continue to listen to Stan. "The war with the Enclave has raged for over a year now, and at the moment both sides are at a standstill. Even so, our current calculations say that even with our western allies, we will eventually loose due to a manpower and resource shortage. I was sent out here to make as many allies as possible and try to coordinate with them. Besides the fight with the slavers, it's actually gone better than expected. This was one of the top locations due to all of the positive news about it and the fact that you guys own one of the bunkers."

This wasn't good. If they managed to put the pieces together and see that we were here, then there's a good chance that the Enclave noticed too.

"Star Paladin Stan, I know that you came here to become an ally of us, and you've very likely accomplished that. While we still need to vote on it with the council, we'll very likely agree to support your cause." I say. I then cut him off before he thanked us. "However, a fight between us and the Enclave will have to wait, because we ourselves are not in a position to fight them. With that and the fact that we're expecting more fighting with the slavers, I don't think we'll be able to fight them for quite some time."

"Alright, I suppose that's fair. How are my soldiers doing?"

"Knight Ordin Will have to stay here to recover for about a week. The other three though should be ready to leave by tomorrow. Since you still need to visit some settlements, how about you pick him upon your return trip?"

Stan looked like he was in deep thought for a moment and then agreed. For a while longer, we continued to ask each other questions. Sheila had also been able to talk to him briefly and was able to establish trade relations with the followers. After there were no questions left, I clapped my hands and stood up, smiling the whole time. "Now that the questioning is finished, how about a tour?"

 **2 hours later**

I had shown Stan and his companions the entire town. We had shown them the hospital, marketplace, residential district, guard HQ, and military HQ aboveground. Now we were showing the three the bunker, and they looked quite impressed. "It's definitely quite similar to our own, although this one focuses more on robotics and ours didn't have vertibirds." He commented as we walked along. We continued on in silence for a few minutes before making our way to the control room. I spotted U-12 discussing something with John before noticing us and coming over.

"Hello Alex. I presume that these are the brotherhood soldiers that you're giving a tour to?"

"Yes U-12, I was just finishing it up here, what are you and John up to?"

"We're just going over a couple of the final repair reports and inventory checks, and a couple of things came up that are quite interesting, if you'll follow me." U-12 led us to one of the computer banks and typed a series of commands onto it before showing us a report of the reactor.

"Our reactor is a mark 3 Fusion reactor, a powerful military bunker standard that can usually not only power the bunker itself, but several nearby military installations. However with this one, there are heavy modifications to it, suggesting that it was being used to possibly launch the mark 4 fusion reactor, which is only found in a few locations in the D.C area and other important military and government sites across the country. With these modifications, the reactor could not only power the bunker, but even a town a four times the size of Republic with all appliances considered. It also comes with a small station to refuel fusion cells and cores, although the process is extremely slow. It's one fusion core every twelve hours and thirty fusion cells every three hours."

I glanced back at the brotherhood soldiers to see how they were taking it. The scribe looked like she was in heaven as she stared dumbfounded at all the information, not too far off from practically drooling. Stan was definitely better, but I could tell that he was thinking about it. His second in command still maintained a blank and stoic face as he watched us. I turned back and asked U-12 about the second thing he mentioned earlier.

"I was just about to get to that. I mentioned that the bunker's reactor would normally power several other military facilities. Well I believe that I have found them." With that, U-12 gestured to the center table as a holographic map popped up, showing the nearby land all the way to the edge of Spokane. As I watched, I saw a few markers pop up on the map, showing various locations not too far away from Republic. Among these included three checkpoints, a communications bunker between Ferry and Republic, and an isolated airbase to the southwest of Republic. There was also a location marked 'Vault-tec storage'. With a bleep, my pipboy added these locations to my digital map.

"Thank you for showing me this U-12." I turned to look at Stan. "So that wraps up the tour. If you want, you can go back to your bunks and take a nap or rest up. We'll give you some spare supplies and recharge your fusion cores before you leave tomorrow. We'll also give you a couple of vehicles."

"Mister Porcer, thank you for helping us." With that, Stan turned around and walked back out towards the elevator, his two companions following him.

When they were back out of earshot, I looked at U-12 and gave my commands. "Alright, in three hours I want teams on the move towards those points. Teams of around 15 for most of them, and a team of around forty for the airfield. I also want each team to have at least one person in power armor and a UAV for the above ground locations." I then pause as I look at John and U-12. "Is there anything else?"

"Is helping the brotherhood the best idea? I know they're different than their fellow members down in the south, but they're still brotherhood none the less. Also, the Enclave are extremely powerful and we've already got enough to deal with as it is." John said.

"I know, but don't worry. By the time we face the Enclave, we should be strong enough to deal with them. Besides, these guys seem trustworthy enough."

 **Author's notes**

I'm back! Sorry it took so long, but between loosing some motivation, being distracted/busy with something else at the time, and having difficulty writing the chapter itself, I couldn't seem to finish it. Well, it's done now! While I'll try to update more frequently, new chapters will still take a while. Well that's all I have for now, I'm hoping to be able to release another chapter or two before school starts in a few weeks. I'll cya'll later!


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